Lifetime of Service

Meet us at the Tennessee Conference on Volunteerism and Service.  We present Monday afternoon and can't wait to share and learn from others who serve in the Volunteer State.

First Stop: NAEA National Conference

Nashville, TN

February 2011 

Meet the authors! 

Presenting, Feb. 11.

We love our customers!

We Did It!

We think you'll love it!

Let's Help Each Other

We'll be presenting at two upcoming conferences and we'd love to see you there.  Join us!  We'll help you learn how to implement service learning in the classroom and we can all share ideas for making it work.

• National Alternative Education Conference, Feb. 9-12
• Tennessee Conference on Volunteerism and Service, Feb. 28-Mar. 1

Kinder, Gentler Journaling

Teachers at any grade level and/or subject area can use journals as a way for students to improve writing skills and explore ideas that are important to them.  Many times, however, students end up complaining or running into "Woe is Me" themes.  Who wants to read that all the time?  Tweak your writing prompts to encourage students to find solutions to problems instead of whining about the troubles they see in the world.  While our goal is for students to identify problems, too much naming-all-the-evil-in-the-world rarely leads to anything positive.

As students begin to develop ideas for ways to improve the world (instead of just complaining about what is wrong) there will be a magical shift in their thinking.  Even if their solutions are impractical, they have begun to search for the positive; further, tackling problems will empower them and may lead to action.  Most importantly, it will stop all the whining.

Project-Based Learning

We contend that service learning is a form of project-based learning with the hugely-important element of service added to it.  View the following video from Common Craft to learn more about PBL.

Sneak Peek