Kids Project "Learning" Into Community
Subject: Kids Project "Learning" Into Community
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 22:50:01 -0500
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (http://www.getipm.com/)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State
of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read the following article:
Kids Project Learning Into Community
A strategy being used with young pupils merges in-school lessons with activities that help the world outside.
By JENIFER RAGLAND
TIMES STAFF WRITER
March 13 2002
In a classroom at Ojai's Topa Topa Elementary School, 11-year-old would-be reporter Libby Bradley asks Farmer John the tough questions.
"Do you use pesticides on your crops?" "Are they safe for humans?" "Have any of your workers gotten sick?"
Through the mock interview with fellow student Jonathan Bower, Libby dramatizes the debate over the use of pesticides on commercial farms, which is a concern for the Ventura County school surrounded by citrus and avocado ranches. The exercise is part of a program being implemented throughout the Ojai Unified School District called service learning--a teaching strategy that aims to merge classroom academics with projects that benefit the larger community. The technique, once used mainly on college and high school campuses, is gaining popularity among public school students in the primary grades, beginning as early as kindergarten. Ojai has been one of the pioneers.
In the next two months, teacher Jeff Madrigal's class will produce an educational pamphlet detailing the pros and cons of pesticide use and the ways in which crop pickers can protect themselves. Students will pass out the brochure, which they plan to write in English and Spanish, to farm workers and consumers throughout the Ojai Valley.
The classroom lessons are designed also to help the fifth- and sixth-graders fulfill state-required standards in language arts, science and social studies.
"What regular education often lacks is meaning," said Chris Smithers, Ojai's service learning coordinator. "We have seen that connecting the students with their community has so many positive effects."
Education leaders predict that the national trend will continue to grow amid the spirit of service and volunteerism that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Kids learn best--and that really goes for younger kids--when they are engaged in hands-on projects," said Susan Thompson, an administrator in the California Department of Education. State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin has called for half of California's schools to implement service learning programs in the next two years.
The movement is rooted in hands-on traditions, but goes further by tying assignments to a service. Projects are supposed to meet specific needs in a community, defined as anything from the school itself to the world.
Much different from community service assignments that require students to volunteer after school, service learning directly links projects to required curriculum and uses class time to get them done.
A new national study by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found that such an approach, when executed well, improved student attendance and achievement, resulting in higher grade-point averages.
Ten elementary schools in Encinitas in north San Diego County, where service learning has been active for a decade, were a part of that report.
Fourth-grade teacher Carol Kulminski said she thinks the projects have made the Encinitas community stronger.
"It's not about test scores, it's about creating people with a heart," she said. "It's the kind of thing that keeps me going."
In Ojai, Madrigal's students gushed about the program.
"You can learn while you help the community," said sixth-grader Alina Downer. "It's boring just sitting around with science books, memorizing facts."
Classmate Grant Winfrey , 11, agreed. "If we're just hearing it in class, it's only us learning about it," he said. "If we do a service learning project, we can teach a lot more people."
Still, the strategy has generated criticism from Oakland to Chicago.
Parents have argued that exposing students to serious social issues such as homelessness could pose a safety threat or involve children in debatable political agendas.
One example in Moorpark had high school students interacting with AIDS patients in local hospices. After some parents complained, teachers scrambled for another project.
Other critics have said the projects could place teachers in roles that should be left to parents and distract kids from learning basics.
"This is government coercing people into doing good acts and kind deeds, and it loses its meaning," said Wendy Leece, board member of Orange County's Newport-Mesa Unified School District, where some classes participate in such projects.
"The government's idea of community service is not necessarily the same as an individual family's idea," she added.
Supporters, however, insist that service learning enhances classroom lessons.
"They're actually using the environment around them to learn," said Dorothy Jackson, an administrator in Los Angeles Unified's local district in North Hollywood, one of three local districts participating in service learning.
The programs have been so successful, she said, that L.A. Unified plans to make service learning a requirement for high school graduation starting in 2005.
Shaun Hirschl, director of youth services for the Orange County Volunteer Center, is another believer. For the last two years, he has worked with local school districts to develop service learning projects. Next month, 1,800 Orange County fourth-graders will glean an agriculture field and donate the vegetables to local food banks.
While helping feed the hungry, Hirschl said, the students will learn about the life of early migrant farm workers--part of their social studies curriculum.
"It makes lessons come alive, and it's something that the kids will remember," he said. "The beauty of it is that kids find themselves as being part of a solution to a problem, and a problem solver in our society. I think that's extremely important."
For the last two years in Ojai, grants totaling more than $100,000 have helped grade-schoolers plant oak trees, adopt a local canyon and lobby for a better public transportation system, Smithers said.
The money comes mostly from a private national initiative called Learn and Serve America, which doles out funding to districts through the state Education Department.
Ojai's schools also were among many this year to receive boosts from a governor's office program centered on Cesar Chavez's birthday, which is March 31 and is being observed in some places on April 1 this year.
That connection to the late farm workers' leader is partly why Madrigal's class focused on agricultural pesticides for its project.
From the teacher's perspective, the endeavor has strengthened students' thirst for knowledge and their desire to help others.
"Will it actually change things in the short term? I don't know," he said. "But are you creating a group of people who are empowered to do things for the community? That's for sure."
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights.
Well Mr. Helliker, I also thought you might like to read one response to the article:
Dear Ms. Ragland:
Thanks for writing the article about the Ojai school children who are learning how important and safe pesticides are in our lives. The article was well-written and informative in its own right.
However, I believe you (or your editors) missed the much more interesting story. The curriculum for (at least) the pesticide part of the material was developed, paid for, and provided by the pesticide industry and large agricultural users of pesticides. Indeed, when there was local resistance to the blatant attempt at indoctrinating impressionable children for the long term benefit of pesticide users/manufacturers, these groups lobbied the politicians to include this curriculum over at the objection of at least some teachers.
This all started several years ago when Ventura Co. officials decided to aerially spray malathion for the medfly. The usual public protest and injured spray victims ensued and created the usual political and public relations problem for big agriculture. So they hired so-called educational consultants to prepare a grade school curriculum with games, yucky insects and diseases, and lies about pesticide safety and value. Some local school teachers (especially those in spray areas with first hand knowledge of the results) refused, so political pressure was brought through the agriculturally-controlled County government.
Several years ago, I obtained copies of the first version of this material, and it is completely one-sided; really a polemic piece on behalf of the pesticide users, with no countervailing theories, alternatives, or hint there is even a controversy about the subject. They appear to have successfully introduced this material, and now an impressionable new generation is being indoctrinated with their controversial point of view as if it were truth. They cannot win the minds of knowing adults, so they have gone to work on the uncritical children.
The material was funded (including paying for actual classroom copies) by front groups which use Orwellian disinformation names (and change them from time to time, as the old names gain disfavor). If you dig deep enough, you will find such names as Western Crop Protection Assn., or Alliance for Food and Fiber. I believe they have recently changed their name yet again to throw off the scent.
Can you suggest how I might best encourage The Times to assign you or another investigative reporter to revealing the more interesting story behind this subject?
Sincerely,Richard Sigler
Richard
Sigler
Attorney
at Law
433 North Camden Dr., Suite 400
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Tel (310) 547-3660
Fax (310) 547-3816
SiglerLaw@aol.com
Mr. Helliker, there are many, more safe, far more economical and far more effective (unregistered) alternatives - why not allow their "legal" use? George Eliot once noted: "It's never too late to be who you might have been." Please try.
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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