Today was a busy day at the University of Texas at Austin.
First, the 40+ acres saw almost 50,000 new faces as part of the University's "Explore UT" event. This is an annual event which attracts students, teachers and parents from all over the state of Texas ranging from the very young to high school age youth, meant to introduce them to college. Different schools, programs and activities across campus plan events to engage, entertain, and enlighten parents, kids, and teachers and to welcome them to the University as potential future members. The LBJ School of Public Affairs invited visitors to make buttons, with an eye towards the elections and political expression throughout the year. (There was also a popcorn machine, which quite honestly delighted the graduate volunteers almost as much as the visiting students.)
For some reason, today's activities struck me more than I anticipated, especially given that it was a relatively short event (only one day). We got to watch service learning in action. It had many of the elements of an ideal service experience: it was face to face, it was intergenerational, it was topical. I cannot count how many Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton buttons I made. And there were definitely more than a few buttons with "[insert child's name here] for Senate" or "President". There were also several that said, "[insert child's name here] is a Southside gangster for life" and the one I refused to make: "Dominique Rodriguez is ugly." But that's the point. We talked about it. We interacted. I made 4 buttons for myself.
Moreover, the parking lots were filled with school buses and charter buses. Several chaperones said they had driven 5 or 6 hours, on a bus, to come to the event. To me, this means that educators understand the value of service learning, are willing to take the time for it, but need some help. The University, as a separate institution, provided valuable resources for the experience; resources above and beyond what primary and secondary educational institutions are able to provide.
I could go on and on about the day, but my shoulder hurts from operating the button machine, so I'll turn to another event on campus today:
The Center for Ethical Leadership at the LBJ School is also holding its annual leadership conference this weekend. The conference is designed to introduce undergraduate students from across the country to critical leadership education. There are distinguished speakers, breakout sessions and activities intended to provoke students to think about effective and ethical leadership, and hopefully be inspired to practice it at their own institutions and throughout their lives. One of the speakers this morning was Dr. Chris Meyers Asch, who, with his colleague Shawn Raymond, is leading the effort to start the U.S. Public Service Academy.
His talk was a sort of quick and dirty narrative about motivations to civic service, types of service and, of course, why we should create an academy modeled on the military service academies to train people to serve. He spoke about the need to create a national "mission" to serve, about service as a means of transmitting values and morals, and about education as a public good. He highlighted the point that "expectations matter," in the classroom and also as a society. He was engaging and inspiring, but also substantive in his prescription for an entirely new institution to make service to this country a goal of America's best and brightest young people.
Tomorrow, I'll blog on the questions I asked about the next policy steps for the Academy and the distinctions between public service, social entrepreneurship, and community leadership.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Princeton University's bold service ambition
Princeton is preparing to offer a year abroad, doing social service work in foreign countries for students before the students enter college. The initiative, called “Princeton in the World,” implicitly integrates several key arguments for service, and even includes an element of the compulsory.
The President of the Institute of International Education, in an interview with the New York Times, expressed that first-year students are “too young when they start college.” It seems that he is not necessarily referring to the numeric age of students, but rather their developmental stage.
Further, one of the stated benefits to students is that such service would “prepare students for a more meaningful Princeton experience.” This is the essence of a pragmatic educational paradigm: experience will deepen the meaning of classroom learning.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the proposal is the notion that such an experience would be mandatory and that an institution has a role in prescribing what may be best for students developmentally. Though Princeton is a private university, there is an idea bound up in this proposal with broader implications. This institution historically charged with developing youth has recognized that there is a disconnect between what the institution should do and what it is doing, and the way to ameliorate the disconnect is with a particular type of experience. Moreover, the institution (with elements of state/public funding) has identified that this experience is so important, so vital to the healthy development of individuals, that the experience may ultimately be mandatory for all incoming students.
This initiative is certainly one to watch.
The President of the Institute of International Education, in an interview with the New York Times, expressed that first-year students are “too young when they start college.” It seems that he is not necessarily referring to the numeric age of students, but rather their developmental stage.
Further, one of the stated benefits to students is that such service would “prepare students for a more meaningful Princeton experience.” This is the essence of a pragmatic educational paradigm: experience will deepen the meaning of classroom learning.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the proposal is the notion that such an experience would be mandatory and that an institution has a role in prescribing what may be best for students developmentally. Though Princeton is a private university, there is an idea bound up in this proposal with broader implications. This institution historically charged with developing youth has recognized that there is a disconnect between what the institution should do and what it is doing, and the way to ameliorate the disconnect is with a particular type of experience. Moreover, the institution (with elements of state/public funding) has identified that this experience is so important, so vital to the healthy development of individuals, that the experience may ultimately be mandatory for all incoming students.
This initiative is certainly one to watch.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Citizenship (again)
Veteran public servant and even longer-term political observer Ted Van Dyk recently spoke to students at the LBJ School of Public Affairs about his new book, “Heroes, Hacks and Fools: Memoirs from the Political Inside”. I have not had a chance to read the book, though after hearing Mr. Van Dyk speak, it sounds right up the alley of a West Wing junkie.
After Mr. Van Dyk spoke, he took questions from the audience. Someone asked him about the current election cycle and after talking briefly about various candidates’ chances, he made the comment that elected officials and those getting the officials elected were in the service of the public and should not forget that. In fact, he said he found it “disgusting” how some elected leaders tended to forget.
Several weeks later, this thought continues to strike me as interesting. Mr. Van Dyk used the word “service” several times during his talk. For him, it seems, political participation at the highest levels is an expression of service. It is not difficult to make the intellectual leap that, in this view, participation is an ideal expression of citizenship as well. By self-admission, Mr. Van Dyk is a child of the Depression, and he brings that historical imagination
This view is interesting to me because it highlights a problem I am having conceptualizing service; the problem of the ideal citizen. That is, what makes a good citizen? The answer to this question both depends on and informs the view of democracy I take. It informs the standard for individual actions, values and mores. Determining what a “good” citizen is tells us about the kind of society we want to live in.
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) articulate a framework of citizenship education, arguing that there are three basic perspectives that inform citizenship education in schools. They note that their list is not exhaustive of all conceptualizations of citizenship, but rather indicative of the perspectives behind formal citizenship education. Their articulations of the “personally responsible citizen,” the “participatory citizen,” and the “justice-oriented citizen” deserve further exploration.
Yet the aspect of their analysis that spurred me to thought is the implicit argument that not all pro-social attitudes and behaviors are inherently necessary for democratic citizenship. For instance, integrity is a good thing. It is a quality we want to teach our children, but is integrity per se absolutely necessary for democratic citizenship? Finally, am I focused on a task-based definition, or a values/intention-based definition? That is, what kind of noun is citizenship? Is it a role, a quality, a combination of qualities, a process, or an action?
After Mr. Van Dyk spoke, he took questions from the audience. Someone asked him about the current election cycle and after talking briefly about various candidates’ chances, he made the comment that elected officials and those getting the officials elected were in the service of the public and should not forget that. In fact, he said he found it “disgusting” how some elected leaders tended to forget.
Several weeks later, this thought continues to strike me as interesting. Mr. Van Dyk used the word “service” several times during his talk. For him, it seems, political participation at the highest levels is an expression of service. It is not difficult to make the intellectual leap that, in this view, participation is an ideal expression of citizenship as well. By self-admission, Mr. Van Dyk is a child of the Depression, and he brings that historical imagination
This view is interesting to me because it highlights a problem I am having conceptualizing service; the problem of the ideal citizen. That is, what makes a good citizen? The answer to this question both depends on and informs the view of democracy I take. It informs the standard for individual actions, values and mores. Determining what a “good” citizen is tells us about the kind of society we want to live in.
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) articulate a framework of citizenship education, arguing that there are three basic perspectives that inform citizenship education in schools. They note that their list is not exhaustive of all conceptualizations of citizenship, but rather indicative of the perspectives behind formal citizenship education. Their articulations of the “personally responsible citizen,” the “participatory citizen,” and the “justice-oriented citizen” deserve further exploration.
Yet the aspect of their analysis that spurred me to thought is the implicit argument that not all pro-social attitudes and behaviors are inherently necessary for democratic citizenship. For instance, integrity is a good thing. It is a quality we want to teach our children, but is integrity per se absolutely necessary for democratic citizenship? Finally, am I focused on a task-based definition, or a values/intention-based definition? That is, what kind of noun is citizenship? Is it a role, a quality, a combination of qualities, a process, or an action?
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