Sage Hill School Stories: Service Learning

The Service Learning Program promotes intellectual growth, self-awareness, community engagement, and social entrepreneurship.

Service learning at Sage Hill School is founded on a vision of a world where education and youth social entrepreneurship co-exist. This vision invites students to put their expertise to work by joining with others to bring about change in the broader community.

One Wednesday a month Sage Hill students and their teachers pick up their heads from their books, set down their pens, push back from their computers, and apply their learning. Some connect personal aspirations to academics. Some celebrate the wonders of literacy. Some engage as scientists by building and caring for urban gardens. Some create sustainable social entrepreneur projects.

For example, our tenth graders teach fourth graders writing skills at underserved elementary schools. Between outings, the English teachers take class time to help students assess what went well and what did not, so they may refine their lesson plans accordingly. By being obliged to teach writing to others, our students become better writers themselves, their fourth grade students improve, and the host organization is better able to deliver its mission. This integrated approach to community service- the linking of direct experience with formal academic training- is what we call service learning.

Sage Hill is one of the first high schools in the nation to offer such a program. Service provides our students with opportunities to change the world. It is an attractive feature that draws potential faculty to us, and enables the school itself to create innovative partnerships, invest in the larger community, and serve as a powerful role model.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

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• sage hill
• service learning
• education
• sage hill school
• independent schools
• newport coast
• california schools