On Visiting The Guilford Institute by Sheila Bailey, Vermont Learn & Serve America Coordinator I would like to share an experience with all of you that gave me greater confidence in how much of an impact service-learning can have on improving education and the quality of life in a small, rural Vermont community. Several years ago, I traveled to the southeastern corner of Vermont, just short of where Vermont borders New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The community is Guilford, and the school I visited is a small K-8 school with a staff of approximately 35 teachers. As I drove along the windy roads following a quiet brook, I smiled thinking about the first time I traveled the road with a colleague anxiously waiting for our first encounter with a new grant site (one of 49 that year). The library that day was filled with wide-eyed, tiny faces staring at our business like suits. I guessed this was quite out of the ordinary for this school. Within the crowd was a young girl named, Becca Tustin, who described her involvement with the "sneaker drive" which turned into a pile of 1,000 shoes and sneakers to be given to needy members in the community. We melted as the children told their rich, engaging stories that still linger among the shelves and books of the library today. When I arrived in the library of Guilford Central School on Wednesday, I looked around the room to see Becca sitting among the teachers, community members, parents and younger students. She is a Senior at Brattleboro High School this year and is getting undergraduate credit from Norwich University as a participant in the 3rd annual Guilford Summer Institute that focuses on service-learning. A few people see me come in and greet me with a smile and then turn to the teacher doing a presentation on "Brain-Based Learning." I tune in with my student ears. Quickly, I remember that the presenter and teacher is also a participant in a Local Study Group to document how she assesses learning through service. This Local Study Group is connected to the National Study Group funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The message is clear– in order for learning to occur, you must take care of the emotions first. We must foster emotional health to promote healthy learning. This requires a caring environment which allows for emotional experiences, which promotes resiliency and therefore builds a greater brain. Kids also need "downtime" to relax, to process, to write and to reflect in order for learning to occur. While I listened, I pictured a quote that used to be taped on my keyboard, "Learning is a reflection on experience." I squeezed my eyes tight trying to see the piece of paper to read the name of the person who made that quote. Who was it? I continued to frustrate myself. Was it Dewey or Jefferson? Just then, I heard the presenter say that all humans can only truly concentrate on one thing at a time. If a child is drawing or scribbling, then he is not able to concentrate on what the teacher is saying. I decided at that point to drop the quote search and pay attention. What was interesting to me was that a participant said to clarify her understanding of the research, "if you read a book one year and the same book three years later, it will be a different book because you have a different brain." This seemed to make sense to me if you consider that in three years you have a wealth of new experiences which mold your brain, assuming that you did not spend those three years "sitting on a chair in a closet," as the presenter added. The presenter went on to share more about the research and the implication that it has for teaching and learning. Researchers contend that the "ability to talk is instinctual, the ability to write is not...orality is a step before literacy." Therefore, kids need more experiences in listening and speaking before becoming literate. This then brought out a final point which I find so key to becoming a literate community and that is "when we sit and listen to stories, we have a communal experience. Storytelling was a communal experience - it CREATED community. Now reading is a personal, solitary experience that doesn't create community." The presentation ended with a task of brainstorming strategies for brain-based learning in five areas: 1. Making sense, 2. Environments, 3. Emotions, 4. Attention Skills, and 5. Time. The Emotion poster listed the following: - giving students the time they need, letting them talk, providing a safe haven, valuing each other, and talking about and valuing differences. I reviewed the posters while sitting in the next session called "strand time." During the Institute, participants focus on one of the three strands: "Discovery Trail"; "Gardens and Agriculture"; "Community Inquiry and Oral Histories". I chose the Community Inquiry strand primarily because the principal, whom I deeply admire for his wisdom and commitment to providing kids with what they need to succeed, was the facilitator. With his ability to encourage and support much like a coach would, he facilitated a discussion about strategies to increase kid involvement. The group talked about their vision of a school where students would drive the curriculum with their questions and concerns and that the teacher's role would be a coach and facilitator to help students to address those questions and concerns, and to meet needs in the community all within the context of the Vermont Framework of Standards and the local curriculum. The consensus was that it will be extremely important to raise student and staff consciousness about service-learning and the role that students can and should have in shaping their futures through education, and through understanding the heritage of Guilford. A student teacher left our strand with a final thought, "Service-learning moves individual achievement to collective achievement. Language is a conveyance for that." Modeling what we now know about brain-based learning, we took some time to relax, reflect and write through poetry. A community facilitator passed around an old button tin with handfuls of individual words written on small pieces of paper. Not knowing what the activity was going to be, I took a very small pinch of words. Later I found out that we would be writing a poem with the words that we pulled out of the tin. I "pinched" 23 words and sorted them out in front of me. While we were allowed to fish in the tin for more words or add some of our own, I challenged myself to use only and all the words I picked in my "pinch." The theme of the poem, of course, was supposed to be service learning. I will share my creation with you... Reflective Discovery Savvy rare vesper that smells of both yes, wrong, crawls meekly beyond wild tree surfaces. Race erratic ears, Go repay. How? Who? I! Although normally I would feel uncomfortable sharing this arrangement of words with a room of strangers, the group made me feel safe and comfortable. The school feels safe and comfortable. Is this due to their commitment to service learning? That service learning has over time created partnerships that have brought community members into the schools as participants in creating curriculum and activities for students? Has service learning contributed to their vision and belief that "the central role of the school community is to help each person become a compassionate, independent and contributing member of an ever changing world?" Or contributed to their belief that "the school community will recognize and respect the uniqueness of each individual?" Or "the school community values and celebrates individual educational achievement?" I believe that it is all of the above. That perhaps service learning has helped to shape what this community already knows as "just good education." I spent the afternoon "on tour" with high school students (graduates of Guilford Central) who were participating in the Institute. They guided me along the nature trail and introduced me to kids who were participating in the "Kid Institute" the same week. These children were building story boxes for the trail, creating a rock bridge and a trail museum. I spotted frogs and fish, sat in an outdoor classroom, admired the articles that the children placed in their outdoor museum and swatted away the many mosquitoes that swarmed around me. Most of all, I was impressed by the conversations I had with the students. Shannon and Alan shared their thoughts about the high school graduation requirements for service hours and we strategized together with the local School-To-Work coordinator, a plan to bring students together to address the issues. Robin, also a high school student who spends many hours volunteering at the elementary school, showed me his weather guide for teachers and students. His partner in this project is another student, Leigh who attends the Neptune Middle School in St. Cloud, Florida. The partnership between Guilford and St. Cloud is a whole other story... Back at the ranch, so to speak, the day wound down with an Internet presentation by a student who worked with Joe (what would we do without Joe!) on developing the Web site for the Institute. The group then traveled along the back roads of Guilford to gather and celebrate at the home of a Partnership Board member whom I met at a Learn and Serve America meeting with Senator Jeffords and former Deputy Secretary Madeline Kunin in May 1995. While I was only a participant for a day at the Institute,this group still had two more incredible days to spend together. As I drove away late that night, leaving behind a tiny community of service-learners, I thought about how this location in Vermont is emulating the five goals of the Presidential Summit on Volunteerism and the goals of the new Equal Education Opportunity Act. Their achievements, I'm sure, will be reflected in Guilford's heritage and nurtured by the future of their children. This reflection was orginally submitted by Sheila Bailey to Vermont's Commission on National and Community Service, and subsequently to the Vermont State School Board