Читать книгу Consequential Learning - Jack Shelton - Страница 9

Young people are citizens and members of communities. They are capable of fulfilling responsibilities that arise from their citizenship and community membership and are prepared to do so. Given the opportunity, they will take initiative to improve the places where they live, and they will demonstrate considerably more character and grit than they are often given credit for. The principles and programs gathered under the rubric “Consequential Learning” build on young peoples’ citizenship and relationships to their communities. They were imagined and refined over thirty years of work with students, work that is described and analyzed below in order to illustrate links between theory and experience and to set out guidelines and examples that will help support application of Consequential Learning principles in other situations.

The Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist Church’s campus ministry at the University of Alabama, was the first setting that led me to think about the approaches in Consequential Learning. The primary constituents of the Wesley Foundation, at which I served as director, were graduate and undergraduate students, and many of them were participants in its community need programs. The second framework was the Program for Rural Services and Research (PRSR), also at the University of Alabama. The PRSR has sponsored university student projects and initiated partnerships statewide with rural schools and communities in order to engage their youngsters in ventures that enhance both learning and civic life.

As United Methodist campus minister and later as organizer and director of the PRSR, I was in a position to encourage and assist university students, to clear space for them to take initiative, and to listen to their insights and reflections. At the PRSR, the scope of my experience was extended to include many small rural public schools, where I watched kids of all ages demonstrate their interest in learning through work that connected them to their communities. My views are grounded in direct experience with students and with adults who understand young peoples’ competence, commitments, and communities. The following summaries of pivotal projects are presented to document students’ abilities and interests and to show how Consequential Learning was developed.

Partlow Project at the Wesley Foundation

Many of the perspectives of this book probably were set in motion by a 1968 meeting between university students and staff members at Partlow State School, Alabama’s residential facility for persons then unfortunately labeled “emotionally and mentally retarded.” The students were members of the Wesley Foundation attending the meeting to negotiate the terms of a service program they were keen to undertake for Partlow residents. The process had been initiated by a Partlow administrator. He was seeking to expand the opportunities available to his school’s clients and asked if students at the Wesley Foundation might be interested in helping. His invitation was taken seriously and sparked a strong response—one that I have seen often when adults seek to engage young people in serious work. Students’ answer to the invitation was to propose a plan that was to be reviewed at the meeting. Their proposal was imaginative, thoughtfully constructed, and placed significant responsibilities upon themselves.

The students planned a program that included events at the Wesley Foundation. Some staff members opposed the recommended program, arguing that residents did not normally leave campus, that there might be lawsuits, and that students might not be able to coordinate the effort. As other issues arose, negotiations became increasingly serious. Students held their own, pointed to potential benefits of the project, and maintained their competence to manage it. In the end, their proposal gained approval, and a groundbreaking relationship was initiated. The process was not unique. On many occasions, I have seen students make plans, establish rationales for them, and make a difference through them—a series of actions that express an intention to undertake consequential civic work that enhances communities.

For more than a decade, the program involved a large number of Partlow residents and hundreds of university students, many of whom developed individual relationships with persons from Partlow. By providing recreation, meaningful associations, and off-campus experience for residents—some of whom would eventually be placed outside the institution—the program permitted students to take on significant leadership roles. Program outcomes demonstrated benefits for all its participants—Partlow residents and students alike. However, the process of program initiation and management also began to reshape my understanding of the competencies and aspirations of young people.

The students’ fundamental role in creating and advocating for the program denoted their interest in more than simply being volunteers, that is, filling existing slots. Working together, students had imagined a new plan for serving residents of Partlow and had articulated a rationale for its implementation. They made the case for a program that had systemic implications and that placed core responsibility squarely on themselves. Their planning process and negotiations with Partlow staff members were models of civic deliberation; their long-term commitment of time, money, and thought was evidence that they intended to make a difference in the community. And the program’s success testified to their competence and dependability. The process defined students as citizens and community members and made clear that fulfilling the attendant responsibilities would have important consequences for their personal development and for the well-being of the place where they lived.

For more that a decade, I was privileged to help support the enterprises of University of Alabama students carried out at the Wesley Foundation. Weekly and summer-long tutorial projects, service to elders in residential facilities, tuition scholarship programs for youngsters from rural Alabama and Africa, and a big-brother volunteer initiative followed the Partlow project and reflected many of its essential features. Out of these programs, the two that most influenced my understanding of the citizenship and community membership of students were the Wesley Shelter Care Home and the Student Coalition for Community Health (SCCH).

Wesley Shelter Care Home

In the early 1970s the Juvenile Court of Tuscaloosa County requested that students at the Wesley Foundation join with it to establish and operate a residential program that would serve as an alternative to detention for adjudicated boys and girls. There were no models to follow and no operators of similar programs with whom to consult, and there were few financial resources at the court’s disposal. Undaunted, Wesley Foundation students agreed to undertake the project.

Why did students attempt such a formidable task? They were not naïve about the difficulties to be faced. Their experience working with troubled youth had given them considerable insight. They knew that the situation would be volatile and unpredictable and that mistakes were inevitable. The proposed program would demand much of their time and would place them in situations requiring constant attention and accountability. Students often explained that they accepted the challenge primarily because they were asked to do so. The request, actually a challenge, honored their ability and concern; it counted upon them to continue to make a difference in the life of the community. The stereotypes of university students were not applied to the Wesley group. The offer of partnership denoted respect that was compelling.

Another reason that students accepted the challenge was that, as big brothers and sisters, they already knew and were concerned about boys and girls under court jurisdiction. Social problems and the persons debilitated by them were not abstractions for these young people; they had seen them and had come to believe that they could help. The students had already worked with officers of the court and had collaborated with their peers to address community needs. They not only had served as volunteers, they had created a program through which others could help kids who needed a big brother or sister. Their history of effective public work also gave them confidence needed to make a positive response to the court’s request.

Finally, students agreed to see the project through because they are persons of character, whose belief systems and civic understandings engendered commitment and determination. There are two primary emphases in Consequential Learning that are rooted in this final explanation of why students would agree to assume such responsibilities. First, Consequential Learning affirms that kids have character, that they are capable of making informed commitments, and they should be called upon to do so. Rather than being blank tablets waiting to have virtues inscribed on them, they are individuals ready to be tested and to demonstrate their convictions. There is no suggestion here that character development ever ceases or that any person, young or old, ever has it all figured out. The point is to realize that young people are neither moral voids nor moral deficits and that their characters are strengthened by action. Second, in the Shelter Care work, their commitments, and the actions emanating from them, were strengthened through association with adults involved in the project as professionals or as volunteers. It was highly beneficial for students to know and be known by adults and to receive their affirmation and guidance. The approaches and projects of Consequential Learning value the creation of meaningful settings through which young people and adults can learn from and about each other.

Working with representatives of the court, especially its chief officer, John Upchurch, students energetically began the process of acquiring and renovating physical facilities; working out the logistics of supervision, feeding, and transportation; meeting the codes of various governmental agencies; and fashioning an operational program. Because the Shelter Care work offered valuable career-related experience, Wesley students were soon joined by their peers in social work, psychology, and other fields related to the program. As with the Partlow project and the efforts described below, students demonstrated their capacity to identify and to create contexts of consequence for their learning.

Churches, civic organizations, and individuals in the community contributed time, expertise, money, furnishings, and building materials needed to implement the Shelter Care project. Local people offered a great deal of assistance when they saw the students’ commitment and public work. It became clear that adults are ready to help and encourage young people when the settings for action are available. I came to believe, as a correlative, that support for public schools declines when citizens cannot see what is going on or understand how they can be of benefit to the institutions and to the kids.

Younger students in the community contributed as well—on their own, junior high school kids held fund-raisers for the homes. Their gifts of money and affirmation were significant motivators for the Shelter Care organizers and were indicators of the community interest of young people whose work presaged similar contributions made by rural youngsters through the programs of the PACERS Cooperative and other school-based ventures described below.

It never occurred to me that the students would fail to fulfill the responsibilities of their partnership with the court. They had been asked to undertake the project because of their track record in working with adjudicated youth and in creating and sustaining other community projects. Students were instrumental in purchasing and remodeling facilities and in preparing an operation manual, as well as staffing and running the program. They did all this in close association with officers of the court and a full-time supervisor. Serving hundreds of adjudicated youth who would otherwise have been held in detention, the program operated for four years; because it proved its value as an alternative to detention, it was subsequently adopted and operated by local government. The students had met the expectations of the juvenile court and their work had demonstrated their civic ability and their community membership.

Student Coalition for Community Health

Experience with the Shelter Care program and other initiatives gave Wesley students the skills and confidence necessary to organize in the mid-1970s the Student Coalition for Community Health (SCCH), an organization that for twenty-five years formed effective partnerships with rural Alabamians to improve community and individual health and to enhance educational and personal growth. The experiences and reflections of SCCH participants expanded my understanding of students’ citizenship and community membership and have been especially important in the development of Consequential Learning approaches.

Modeled on the Student Health Coalition operating out of the Center for Health Services at Vanderbilt University, the SCCH was built upon the hopes, the competence, and the persistence of Wesley Foundation members joined by other University of Alabama students, especially from the New College, an innovative academic unit that permitted students to take a great deal of initiative in their own education. In addition, students from universities and medical schools around the country were employed on health fair staffs. Young people signed up with the SCCH primarily to make a difference in the well-being of rural Alabama communities. Those whose only objective was resumé building were not well received—more was expected than getting the jump on peers in the quest for scarce slots in medical schools. In preparation SCCH students observed and worked as staff members in Vanderbilt’s health fairs, which they were seeking to adapt to Alabama. Through these fairs, graduate and undergraduate students, living with community members and receiving support from Vanderbilt faculty and other professionals, conducted comprehensive screening clinics in inner-city Nashville as well as in rural communities in the mountains of east Tennessee and in the western, cotton-growing area of the state. The health fairs were appealing to Alabama students, who grasped their potential to provide medical services while promoting community organization essential for long-term improvements. With crucial assistance from Bill Dow and others at Vanderbilt, students began the hard work of organizing, recruiting, fund-raising, and proposal writing; forming partnerships with communities; and making essential connections with individuals and agencies needed to provide guidance and support.

The road was not easy. Tasks were complex and costly in terms of students’ time, energy, and even their personal cash flow. Not being taken seriously, however, especially by some medical professionals and agency administrators, was the most difficult problem for students. It sapped their energy even though it was counterbalanced by remarkable support from many professionals, especially William Willard and John Packard of the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama.

Once I accompanied an SCCH member meeting with a health agency director for the purpose of interpreting the initial health fair programs and requesting support. Before the student could complete her brief presentation, the director pronounced the program a waste of time and suggested that she volunteer to file articles, reports, and journals in the agency office. It was a revealing response, clearly stating that the director felt there was no reason even to find out anything about the student, a recent honors graduate of the University of Alabama on her way to Vanderbilt’s school of medicine with considerable scholarship support. Her well thought-out career aspirations were service-based and in line with the agency’s mandates, but the director was unwilling to engage her or to listen to her presentation of a program to which she was obviously committed. Unfortunately this was not the only occasion on which I saw young persons and their aspirations dismissed without a hearing.

In forming the SCCH and preparing for its first health fair project, students faced a variety of crises mainly centered on the establishment of partnerships with communities, agencies, professionals, and funders. The project had no track record, and it was being promoted by college students who were asking a lot. Inevitably there were ups and downs that required students to be persistent and smart. The most critical of the problems was a last-minute change in requirements by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ), the major initial source of financial support. The foundation determined that funds would have to be routed through the University of Alabama and not the Wesley Foundation as originally specified. The change placed students in a difficult situation. The Wesley Foundation Board of Directors had assured students that, within normal organizational rules, they would be the decision-makers regarding the expenditure of grant funds. The turn of events left them without that assurance. After hours of difficult deliberation in a meeting to decide their course of action, SCCH student members decided overwhelmingly to reject the grant and cancel their plans. In order to insure the integrity of their organization, they were willing to turn down indispensable financial resources, face up to their failure with community members and other supporters, and lose summer jobs in which they had invested a great deal—including a substantial amount of hope. They understood that their decision put the SCCH in serious jeopardy; but they had taken responsibility for the project, and it would succeed or fail under their leadership. Whether the decision was right or wrong, it demonstrated character and a willingness to sacrifice for principle.

The decision and the process whereby it was made shaped the organization. Students had tested their commitment and had demonstrated their belief in their own competence. Ultimately, through the intervention of David Mathews, president of the University of Alabama, and Neal Berte, dean of its New College, arrangements were made that allowed students to take the responsibilities they sought, accept the RWJ funding, and proceed with their work. Both Mathews and Berte were committed to having students take initiative and assume civic responsibility. The university provided administrative support requisite for SCCH success, facilitated student decision making, and matched the existing commitments of the Wesley Foundation. The efforts of the SCCH made a significant difference to students and to many people and communities in the state, thereby furthering the goals of the supporting institutions that maintained their own organizational integrity while fostering the creation of new contexts where young people could grow in character, prepare for their futures, and understand more clearly the relevance of their education.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the United Methodist Church and with support from the University of Alabama and the Wesley Foundation, SCCH students set about implementing their first health fairs in three rural Alabama communities. Living with community members who provided room and board, students offered free comprehensive health assessments; they were assisted by physicians, nurses and nurse practitioners, hospitals and health agencies, medical, nursing, and optometry schools, local health departments, and several university departments. Screening clinics were usually set up in schools and were operated at times that were accessible even to persons working night shifts. The hours were long and the work difficult, but growing awareness of the seriousness of local health problems confirmed they were doing the right thing.

Students also valued the health fairs for the personal development opportunities they offered, and this reinforced their commitment to the SCCH. The preparation done by its founding students was insightful and thorough and laid the groundwork for future accomplishments. Over time SCCH effectiveness correlated with student leadership, funding levels, community response, and the support of agencies and individuals. In the judgment of external evaluators, community members and the students themselves, the SCCH was highly successful and provided a history that warrants reflection.

There are two questions about the SCCH that are especially relevant for understanding Consequential Learning: What happened as a result of students’ efforts? What values and interests did these efforts reveal? The first question focuses on the organization and its activities as a context for student learning, personal development, and effective civic action. The second examines motivations and aspirations.

What did the health fairs and the SCCH achieve? In the first place, students learned a lot. They developed and applied a variety of skills, many of which related to their college majors and their potential careers. Medical students learned how to take patient histories, give screening exams, and begin to trust their own judgment; social work students gained knowledge about the functioning of communities and the operation of government agencies; and history students occasionally chronicled local life. Participants also developed civic capacities: SCCH student coordinators became skilled at organizing; public speaking and interpretation built the confidence of most members; collaborative decision making, problem solving, and action were routine; and students learned how to take stock of their efforts in demanding and complex circumstances.

Students sought and gained considerable first-hand perspective on health systems and on individual health. They became conversant with the sources of many of the state’s health problems. Some learned why they were interested in being medical professionals and others that they wanted no part of medicine. SCCH work gave participants a chance to study their state and to appreciate the value of the knowledge of place. They made friends, often across racial and cultural lines, and they had fun doing so. Their self-esteem was bolstered by the gratitude and affirmation they received from community members. Students were pleased that they had tested their values and resolve and had proved their capacity to make a difference.

Many members considered their SCCH experience to be the most important in their education and in their personal growth. I regard that assessment as particularly significant, since students in the formative years of the SCCH were not afraid to pass negative judgments on their own efforts or those of their peers. Consequential Learning’s emphasis on young peoples’ attention to self-evaluation is grounded in its benefits for SCCH students who made the case that they were entitled to judge their lives for themselves. Students—who are citizens—are not often encouraged to carry out their responsibility to assess the contexts and content of their education. As a result, it often seems that they are conditioned to focus primarily on what they must do to obtain the grades they want.

The health fairs also produced benefits for community members—many of which they would not otherwise have enjoyed. Thousands of people were screened and tested, and previously undiscovered pathologies were revealed. A number of them were life-threatening and were treated by physicians and hospitals that had agreed to receive health-fair referrals. Communities remembered the life-altering and life-saving cases. They influenced peoples’ attitudes toward their own health care and engendered an appreciation for the SCCH; and they were the foundation for partnerships later created between the University of Alabama and rural communities in the state.

I was routinely told by community participants in the health fairs that their physical exams were the best they had ever had. Although supervising physicians frequently questioned such valuations, it was agreed that people were responding positively to the thoroughness with which medical and nursing students explained the examination process. They also provided useful information on healthy living and on how to make connections with local or regional health agencies. Through the administration of medical histories and SCCH-designed community health surveys, and through physical examinations, water testing, and demographic studies, SCCH members collected significant local information as well and used the results to foster local improvement.

With energy and insight, SCCH members gathered, analyzed, interpreted, and acted on information. As a result of that practice, the SCCH provided community members good information for community health planning and projects. Most important for Consequential Learning was the confirmation of the eagerness and capacity of young people to gather and apply relevant information.

Young community members assisted in the health fairs and, thereby, established important connections with university students. In a joking but revealing assessment, they noted that if the health fair staff members could succeed in college and in professional careers, so could they. For many rural youngsters these kinds of connections were unique and valuable. In the process it was made clear to me that young people in school, especially kids with limited connections and options, would find association with undergraduate and graduate students very profitable. In the projects described below, this notion was continually reaffirmed, both by university students returning to their schools as mentors and through the participation of adult resource persons.

Positive outcomes for individual students and community members were important objectives for the health fairs. More often than not, however, project success was measured by systemic changes. Students worked hard to insure that the results of the fairs included permanent local improvements, and SCCH activities were, in fact, pivotal to the creation of numerous primary health care clinics and other additions to community infrastructure, such as libraries, playgrounds, parks, and water systems.

The SCCH is a success story with respect to community institutional change, but its experience is also a reminder that, whether in a major university or in a rural school, reform occurs infrequently and seems extremely difficult to sustain. The SCCH’s twenty-five year run was certainly unanticipated, and its accomplishments—including systemic changes—also exceeded expectation. Yet, despite its success, the organization could never garner the institutional respect and support it needed to fulfill its potential or to become a permanent entity. When external private funding had been exhausted, university commitments to match the unfailing contributions of rural communities were not forthcoming. Although that may simply have been result of insufficient institutional revenue, it remains a reminder that educational reform is a complex long-term undertaking for which the “funding plumbing” has usually not been laid.

It is important to emphasize again that the efforts of SCCH students brought about lasting systemic changes. In addition to the establishment of local clinics and other infrastructure additions, the University of Alabama, based on the SCCH, created a program to connect the institution to rural communities. The achievements of the SCCH testify to the capacity of young people, when appropriately challenged and supported, to recognize and address even deep-seated systemic problems. But, the ability to effect change is not peculiar to university students. Reference will be made later to the work of rural public school students who significantly contributed to improving the infrastructure of their communities and counties.

What motivated SCCH students? With several exceptions, students in the SCCH were diligent and thoughtful in the planning and implementation of demanding projects in which a great deal was at stake and whose outcomes were very public. During the period of the first health fairs, students spent considerable time assessing the quality of their efforts, the impact of their work on communities, and their own personal development. Observing their work, listening to their group discussions, and interviewing students individually permitted me to gain perspective on what mattered most to them and what motivated them to undertake and complete difficult tasks.

The young people who established the SCCH placed the highest priority on making a difference in the lives of communities. Although “making a difference” is perhaps a cliché, it does summarize what drove students more than anything else. For some, it suggested traditional community service, but for others it meant improving the prospects of rural communities and even improving health-care policies and the university itself.

The SCCH was a student-created venue in which young people could make critical decisions, take responsibility, and actualize their commitment to self-determination. It was important to students that outcomes be, to a great degree, in their hands—from that priority much of the energy and success of the SCCH was derived. An interesting by-product of the new leadership opportunities offered by the SCCH was the extensive participation of women, who in disproportionate numbers assumed the crucial role of project coordinator and made up a majority of the staff membership. Female students have also participated in significant numbers and taken leadership roles in other programs described in this book, suggesting that programs linked to community improvement can create opportunities that are especially equitable and inclusive.

SCCH members’ interest in taking responsibility was balanced by their commitment to forming partnerships. Collaboration was seen as an essential component of success, and it was understood that compromise would occasionally be required. Students sought to become partners with professionals, agencies, and communities, but they wanted to be viewed as responsible agents in the health fair projects. At times. professionals associated with the SCCH mistook their insistence on assuming responsibility and making decisions for arrogance when it was, in fact, prerequisite to the formation of equal partnerships. From the outset, SCCH students refused to look upon the health fairs as their sole possession. They were undertaken and carried out in partnership with communities and were regarded as mutually beneficial.

Because of their potential for enhancing community life, students sometimes measured the outcomes of health fairs by the formation of new associations within communities and between communities and individuals and organizations. The word “coalition” in the organization’s title was early evidence of students’ interest in partnerships and their recognition of the value of cooperation with communities and with the persons and agencies committed to them. The use of partnerships to effect public improvements is a persistent theme in Consequential Learning because they are fundamental to civic life and to successful community action. In the same way because of their ability to extend institutional resources and capacities, it is also apparent that the effective education of young people requires the collaboration of individuals and organizations outside the schools. The SCCH proclivity for establishing collaborative relationships was an important backdrop to the formation of the PACERS Cooperative and other rural partnerships needed to support change agendas.

Students were looking for real world experience, and they found it. They were sure they needed more than a classroom education and were eager to learn from people whose experiences differed from their own and those of their teachers. During the summer-long health fairs, students often lived and worked in circumstances wrought by desperate poverty. For most of them the experience of pervasive need was unknown; for some it was going home. In either case they brought a self-imposed mandate to partner with people and communities in need to improve the welfare of both. Students often had to deal with the effects of racism and depressed rural economies, circumstances that tested their resolve. On the other hand, they found some communities that were on the rise, ready to take important steps and looking for the kind of boost the SCCH could provide.

Members of the SCCH were welcomed into local homes, where they were treated as family, regarded as persons with skills, and accepted as friends across racial, cultural, and economic lines. Students had sought such experiences and thrived on the opportunities they afforded—opportunities that they created for themselves but that were enriched by the way rural Alabama communities welcomed them, worked with them, and taught them. The acceptance of students by communities exemplifies the willingness of adults to support young people and to enhance their education and personal experience, provided they have a context for doing so.