The promise of the declaration, though, is in its recognition of youth as resources to be tapped, rather than problems to be solved. Therefore, a primary goal of the Partnering Initiative on Education and Civil Society is to expand service learning opportunities for our youth. There has been some controversy over whether children should be required to do community service, and reasonable people can disagree on that point. The goal of the partnering initiative is to expand the number of organizations involved by establishing 10,000 partner schools in the next 10 years to serve as resource centers. It s simple.
Kids don t know what they don t know.
You have to expose them to the opportunity to serve, so they can find out if it is something they should do. Not every child will walk away from a required bout of service with a sense of needing to contribute, but many will. I would argue many more than would come to it out of instinct. God knows, the need in our communities for helping hands, minds and hearts is great. Perhaps even more compelling for school administrators trying to run safe, orderly schools that graduate lifelong learners, though, is the positive impact service learning has in developing thinkers, doers and problem-solvers, rather than passive students who at their best are only worried about grades and test scores.