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PSLA Newsletter - September 2005

by the Pennsylvania Service-Learning Alliance

• I. PSLA – What’s New
• II. Hurricane Katrina Relief Projects
• III. Constitution Day September 17th
• IV. National Service-Learning Conference March 2006
• V. Service-Learning Spotlight: Digital Miracles Project in Jamaica

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I. What’s New at the Pennsylvania Service-Learning Alliance?

New Workshops
PSLA has new listings of service-learning workshops we offer for teachers and students. Topics include:

• Service-Learning 101
• Building Community Connections
• Special Education Partnerships
• Youth as Evaluators
• Much more

Have a group of teachers or students to be trained? We can come to your school! Visit our web site for a complete listing: http://www.paservicelearning.org/PSLA/Workshops.htm

21st Century Community Learning Centers
PSLA is now providing training and technical support to 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21CCLC) in Pennsylvania. 21CCLC grantees provide after school, academic enrichment programming to lower income communities. PSLA offers workshops, web resources, site visits, teleconference calls, and more to the grantees. In particular, we are helping the after school programs bring innovative educational technology activities to their students through the Digital Miracles program. We are also engaging teachers and students in service-learning methodology and community collaborations.
For more information about 21CCLC, visit http://21cclc.paservicelearning.org/

Character Education
This summer, PSLA Director Dr. Cynthia Belliveau was published in the U.S. Department of Education's Character Education and Civic Engagement Technical Assistance Center's E-Newsletter. The article, entitled "Students as Evaluators of Character Education" profiles students across Pennsylvania who are evaluating programs in their schools. The students explain in their own words what they have gained from this valuable experience. Read the newsletter at http://www.cetac.org/newsletter/CETAC_Newsletter_Vol1Is2.pdf

Dr. Belliveau also had the opportunity to present on "Youth as Evaluators," as part of a panel at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS) 2005 National Conference.

Our website has many new resources, from grant listings to peer consultants to service-learning links. Check it out! http://www.paservicelearning.org

Submit to the newsletter! Let us know about the service-learning that’s going on in your Pennsylvania community. Email articles/updates/photos to: info@paservicelearning.org.

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II. Hurricane Katrina Relief Projects

Our hearts and thoughts go out to the people and region affected by Hurricane Katrina. We are saddened by the tragic loss of life and widespread damage to homes and communities.

Service-learning is the foundation of PSLA’s mission and we feel compelled to do all we can to help with the relief efforts.

As you seek to find ways to volunteer and help in your own communities and classrooms, we’ve compiled some links that list project ideas and lesson plans.

HYPERLINK "http://www.paservicelearning.org/Resources/katrina.htm" http://www.paservicelearning.org/Resources/katrina.htm

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III. Constitution Day September 17th

Did you know that September 17th is Constitution Day? In May 2005, the U.S. Department of Education announced that all educational institutions receiving federal funding must observe September 17th, as Constitution Day, celebrating the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution. According to the guidelines put forth by the Department of Education, teachers and schools are free to design Constitution Day programming that best addresses the needs of their students.

Click here for more information and project ideas:
http://www.paservicelearning.org/Initiatives/21stCCLC/constitutionDay.htm

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IV. National Service-Learning Conference
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
March 22-26, 2006

The National Youth Leadership Council's Annual Service-Learning Conference is scheduled to take place in Philadelphia on March 22-25, 2006.  PSLA and the rest of the Pennsylvania service-learning community are excited to play host to this amazing conference.  We are getting ready to showcase all of the wonderful service-learning work happening right here in our own state.

Visit the conference web site (nylc.org) to download the call for presenters, the service-learning showcase application, and the conference flier.  The Call for Presenters deadline is September 26. Submit your proposal today! We look forward to seeing you there!

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V. Service-Learning Spotlight: Digital Miracles Project in Jamaica

The Digital Miracles Project instructs students in computer hardware repair, software installation and provides them with a refurbished computer for their home. Through service-learning, students also find ways to pass on what they have learned to their community.

This summer, a group of students traveled down to Jamaica to repair computers in several public schools while providing technical training to both students and teachers.

Below is an article from the Philadelphia Tribune detailing their trip.

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Service project takes students to Jamaica
By Janae Hoffler
Philadelphia Tribune Staff Writer

Joking and laughing, five students from Gratz High School talked about their experience in Jamaica earlier this summer, as they hung around at Penn’s Landing Aug. 20.

From the ginger that spiced every meal and drink, the goats that hung around outside the school, the food they liked, and the food they did not, the students talked about all there was to see and do in Jamaica.

They were among seven total CommuniTech Club members who during a nine-day visit
repaired and refurbished computers in the basic and high schools in Jamaica’s St. Thomas as part of the Pennsylvania Digital Divide Initiative.

Melissa Howard, 18, and Rebecca Young, 17, had just joined CommuniTech in February when they heard they were going to Jamaica. Just a month before, the Gratz Cluster Youth-Driven Service-Learning Center had formed the International Student Technology Enrichment Program with Edu-Tourism and the Pennsylvania Service-Learning Alliance.

The goal of ISTEP is to provide computer repair and technical training and bridge the digital divide in countries around the world, in essence, replicating PDDI.

All but Howard, who’d gone on another service-learning trip to England last year, spent spring months getting passports, and raising money for their expenses. As the end of the school year neared, they got creative in their fundraising.

Soul-food platters were sold to nearly everyone in school, 17-year-old Kevin Zuber said. Those sales and in-kind donations from teachers supplemented the funding they got from PSLA. In Jamaica, they taught the high school students and teachers how to repair the computers in three days.

“We took (the computers) apart, let them put it back together, we had fun with it. We would put them back together and stuff,” Zuber said.

Howard and Young were the software experts, and Rashon Branch, Mustafa Brown and Zuber worked in hardware. To make it fun, they had challenges with the Jamaican students.

“Our quiz was we’d do something wrong with the computer and they had to figure out what to do and how to fix it. They tried to quiz us; they would mess up the computer and let us fix it,” Young said.

When not in the computer labs, they visited the beaches, parasailing in Negril, touring the National Gallery of Art and shopping in Kingston. They unanimously favored the Jamaican grapefruit drink Ting, a Mountain Dew-like beverage.

“I thought it was going to be like the tourist sites like when you see on the commercials, but when we got there it was totally different. It wasn’t that bad. It was more like a summerhouse that we stayed in. We got the best of both worlds because we seen, you know, the poor, and we seen the good stuff,” Howard said of her first impression.

It gave them a chance to experience Jamaican culture, and appreciate their school back home. The high school, Yallahs High School, had names like C-block and D-block for the rooms, and was surrounded by bars like a prison, they said.

“At the basic school there, they had what, how many kids there – like maybe 50 – and they had one computer, for the whole school. One, just one. At the high school, they had a couple more computers – maybe like 15 in their center,” Howard said.

Once the Jamaican students warmed up to them, they were comfortable enough to dance and laugh with them. They learned new words in the patois dialect, and demonstrated the handshake.

“Once we broke that barrier like, ‘we don’t know them,’ we started having fun. They were at first like, staring, but after a while, you go on and on it starts to get boring, so I started cracking jokes, and that was when they opened up,” Zuber said.

By the final evening, on June 25, they all came together for a party.

“The party was just for the two high schools coming together to relax and reflect on what we did … and dance,” Young said laughing.

They exchanged numbers with the Jamaican students, and some of them had contacted the Gratz students over the summer.

Aside from the trip, they said raising the money and making the platters were the best part. In an earlier phone interview, Maurice Benson, 17, said the same thing.

“It was interesting because Mr. Zemanek and other teachers who talked about how the trip to Jamaica is a little more expensive, so that means you have to put together all this stuff like projects and events to hopefully get enough money for the trip to Jamaica, it was tricky and a little bit hard and challenging. But we put out heads and minds into it to overcome obstacles that we faced and we did it,” Benson said.

He left for Lincoln University before everyone else met. Zuber is going to AmeriCorps, but hopes to be around to help out with CommuniTech next year.

Branch, who does animation and is planning to work in California, is going to Art Institute in the fall. Brown, 19, is going to Art Institute and hopes to transfer to Bloomsberg and study genetic engineering. Zuber is studying for A+ certification, and Young would like to get CC&A networking certification.

The CommuniTech Club trained the students in software installation, hardware repair, troubleshooting and applications, and they later refurbished computers for the Nicetown Boys and Girls Club, Parkway Gamma High School and within their own school.

Howard and Young are hoping to visit Africa, possibly South Africa, for next year’s service-learning project. They each plan to run for school president this year.

“Imma miss the whole Gratz atmosphere, because when you go there for four years it’s not a friendship thing anymore, it’s like a family, an extended family, a second or third home,” Brown said.

He said, “Imma miss just hanging out with these people right here. If it wasn’t for Tuesdays and Thursdays at the end of the day I’d probably be in jail. Because people was pushing me all day, everyday.”

He put his arms around Howard and Young and said, “and they kept me together."