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Students, Faculty, Families, Alumni and Friends of Westminster!
In our commitment to "developing the whole person for college and life through excellent education," The Westminster Schools engages in ongoing strategic planning. As a part of this process, we pose the questions: Does a school merely exist physically in a community or are there larger purposes to the relationship? If so, what are they? And, in what ways can school and community relate? Please share your thoughts about the purpose of Westminster within the broader Atlanta community.
In our commitment to "developing the whole person for college and life through excellent education," The Westminster Schools engages in ongoing strategic planning. As a part of this process, we pose the questions: Does a school merely exist physically in a community or are there larger purposes to the relationship? If so, what are they? And, in what ways can school and community relate? Please share your thoughts about the purpose of Westminster within the broader Atlanta community.
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- The Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Institute for Philanthropy and Service Learning provides transformative educational experiences that engage each student, the Westminster family and peer communities in philanthropy, active citizenship, and commitment to the common good.
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Perhaps, given the public perception of Westminster as an "elite" enclave in Atlanta, we should focus on building long term relationships around one or perhaps two areas of concern within Atlanta. Rather than doing multiple service projects and being "all over the city" Westminster could engage in a partnership with non-Westminster citizens to address a need year after year so that graduating class after graduating class could build personal as well as civic relationships with other citizens who have no direct ties to Westminster.
ReplyDeleteAs James O. pointed out in our first Board meeting, to help someone is to invite them into a relationship. Personal relationships foster change better than projects. Perhaps our relationship to the city should be just that: a civic relationship which grows and sustains itself over time through personal relationships rather than a series of multiple projects which can easily become very short term.
This approach would require members of the Westminster community to work "in the city" rather than "from the Westminster campus."
I love the idea of focusing on relationship, RB. This can bring us toward a reciprocity and mutuality that makes each person become a giver or a receiver in the relationship at different times.
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ReplyDeleteTwo things seem obvious;
ReplyDelete1. An institution of the stature of Westminster has an absolute responsibility to the community.
2. Since Westminster’s business is “the education of young people”, it could be argued that the need to model that responsibility is even more acute than most organizations, since we should be passing those values on to our charges.
I don’t think many would challenge either of those assertions, BUT despite the clear value for kids of such community involvement, I worry a great deal about one thing.
I believe that the fact that Westminster is indeed a SCHOOL, its paramount and fundamental objective should be the nurturing of excellence in traditional, classroom, “textbook-based” academics. Observing as I do, on the ground on a daily basis, I am concerned about the increasingly large amount of time and energy which is devoted toward non-academic educational opportunities that has the unintended consequence of the increasing the marginalization of some of the more traditional classroom endeavors. Perhaps this is the way of “21st century learning” (whatever THAT means), and as such perhaps I am out of touch, but nevertheless it remains a tremendous concern for me.
The position of the pendulum needs careful monitoring as it swings away from traditional (academic) education toward less traditional educational opportunities. We will all have different levels of comfort with the prevailing trend.
In terms of a systems-thinking sort of analysis, Westminster is a part of the Atlanta community. Our school is a member of the system. With intention and by unconscious taken-for-grantedness, we, as a school, interact with our Atlanta community. What if we were more purposeful in our interactions? What if we treated the relationship between school and city as we would a friendship (a more personal relationship)? Perhaps we would make sure that we were contributing to the relationship, as well as taking from it. To a great extent, we contribute positively to the city. But maybe we could do more, and maybe we could do so more systematically. Atlanta is full of great opportunity, as well as great need. Westminster could utilize the opportunities to a greater degree while also giving back and improving the city with positive influence. I watch my children learn by exploration and discovery and experiential interaction. Imagine our students using their developing understanding to explore and to discover and to experience and interact with Atlanta - both to learn from it and to contribute to our city's development. Learning for citizenship through citizenship. Not at the expense of content knowledge or time in traditional classrooms, but in harmony and synergy with such other measures and modes of learning.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher who has done a fair amount of service learning with students, I can say that the biggest problem has been time, not surprisingly. Although I feel good about the community interaction that we have had, it has been limited due to scheduling constraints. Our current schedule does not allow for a tremendous amount of consistent community interaction unless students decide to use some of their precious free time. Even the most well-meaning students are already overscheduled and don't have time to do anything "extra". Therefore, we would need to schedule time during the school day. However, I agree with Adrian. How much additional time are we willing to commit, which in essence takes away from more traditional academic learning? Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I know that Adrian and I are not the only ones who feel that way.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue I have is with forced "community service". I don't think that there is much to be gained by forcing students to "do good in the community". I agree with RB about the importance of fostering a personal relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship. Not only in the "I feel good because I am helping other people" way, but I would like both sides to grow and to understand eachother as human beings and to develop empathy, like Daniel Pink says. I feel like we are producing a lot of successful students in an academic sense, but so many are lacking in the basic "human/emotional" skills. I think that we are trying to address that issue as a school, but I do not feel like what we are doing is succeeding. The kids feel forced by our affective/service attempts. I don't have the answer, but I feel like we need to be doing more (and something different) in this respect.
I am not sure what the school leadership is already doing, and I imagine that they are doing a lot more than we know, but I think that it is important for the school leadership to maintain a presence in the various Atlanta communities and to invite those communities to our campus to participate in our daily lives. Not just as potential donors. Or in some paternalistic way. Or to promote diversity. But in a real way, invite people to participate in what we do and they hopefully in turn will invite us to do the same. As I said, this is probably already happening to some extent, but I'm sure that more could be done. I think that there is a great deal that we can all learn from eachother.