The Role of After School Programming
in Cultivating Lifelong Learners

by Alison Varty

Alison Varty is a VISTA volunteer working with the Shelburne Farms Sustainable Schools Project (SSP). She reflects here about her own love of learning, and wonders how to encourage the students she works with to become engaged learners outside the classroom.

I was privileged to have two parents who were teachers and extremely devoted to my education. I did well in school and was excited about college when the time came. Since graduating from college I have actively sought enriching experiences and would describe myself as a dedicated life-long learner.

This dedication to learning has steered my career path towards education. I started working for the Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project (SSP) in August of 2004. The SSP is a whole school professional and curriculum development model that works with one school for two to three years. We aim to use the lens of sustainability to improve teacher practices and student learning, increase school and community partnerships and improve the school campus ecology. One important aspect of our model, and a portion of my role in the project, is teaching in the school’s after-school program. The SSP uses this time to reinforce the sustainability work that is being done in the classroom. I believe this portion of our work does much more; it has the potential to instill a love of learning in our students.

The first after-school class I designed was called Where in the World Does Your Food Come From? My goal was to have the students think like detectives and perform a thorough investigation of the food system. We investigated food processing by canning, drying, and preparing food ourselves. We examined global food production issues and transportation by visiting the local grocery store to read labels and locate the origins of commonly eaten foods. We discussed how those foods are farmed, then dissected and planted seeds to gain an understanding of what plants need to grow.

The students were enthusiastic as long as they were active. They loved going out into the community and actually participating in the processes central to the food system. However, as soon as I tried to start a discussion with them or ask them to reflect through writing or drawing, they were extremely resistant. Group dynamics crumbled and I heard the phrase, “this is too much like school,” on several occasions. Although the students were naturally learning by engaging in the activities, they were resistant to academic reflection because they were not used to learning intentionally outside of the classroom. This is a huge barrier to fostering devotion to life-long learning.

I began to ponder why this might be. I observed the strongest contrast to this mindset while working at an ecology education residential center with home-schooled students. It was clear that the school day did not begin at 8 AM and end at 3 PM for these students and that they were used to having all subjects woven naturally into their learning. They viewed the world as their classroom and anyone with something interesting to say as their teacher. They were not hesitant to ask questions and engage in reflection.

The typical school day for the average student consists of subjects separated into blocks of time even though these concepts seldom exist in isolation in the real world. The more separated these subjects remain, the more difficult it is for students to relate to them in the world. Could this disjunction be contributing to their difficulties with intentional learning in the world outside of school?

In addition to a school day often lacking real world experiences, out-of-school time tends to be short on intentional educational experiences for these students. Perhaps the aversion to activities that involve academic reflection results from the lack of these activities in the evenings and on the weekends.

Of course, most parents cannot provide a home-schooled education for their children. However, I believe after-school programs provide a hopeful means of cultivating life-long learning. After-school programming provides a unique opportunity to engage students in hands-on, interdisciplinary experiences and service-learning projects that engage students in authentic learning experiences and long-term activities. Furthermore, the after-school program easily takes learning beyond the classroom and into nontraditional settings such as the school kitchen, the schoolyard and special places around the community.

I continue to teach two after-school programs each session as a part of my work with the SSP. I am currently teaching an after-school program called Food, Fun and Science. Each week the students put on their aprons and safety goggles and head to the school kitchen to experiment with food. The first week we talked about the scientific method and designed an experiment to determine what makes alfalfa seeds sprout. I brought in seeds and sprouts for the kids to examine. All who were brave enough to taste the sprouts agreed that they tasted like grass and ate very little. The next week, we examined our two jars of sprouts, one that had been rinsed daily with water; one that had not. The treatment had worked. The students were able to conclude that water helped alfalfa seeds sprout. They proceeded to eat the whole quart of sprouts and insisted, “This must be a different kind than the ones we ate last week.” They surely were the same. Aversion had been destroyed by familiarity, yet they still moan when we record the results of the experiment in our scientific notebooks.

This opposition to intentional learning outside of the school day is not as easy to quell. However, I am optimistic. The flexibility of after-school programming can provide students with opportunities that can begin to sharpen their view of the world as a classroom and begin to view their peers and community members as teachers. Despite the initial frustrations, I am convinced that quality, community-based, after-school programming holds the potential to cultivate life-long learners.

Learn more about the Sustainable Schools Project