Service Learning Consultant and facilitator LeeAnne Lavender profiled Orange Lutheran's team of educators who are embedding Global Citizenship Education into OLu's existing Service Learning curriculum and key learning experiences.
"Service learning is a way of teaching that allows students to apply the knowledge and skills they learn in a specific unit or class to real-world needs and scenarios," Lavender writes. "Students learn to assess their communities’ assets and needs, and find connections to what they’re learning in school. It’s an empowering method of learning, and one that has been developed over the last forty years to become a purposeful teaching method in schools worldwide."
Service is an core element of the Orange Lutheran Experience, but integrating global citizenship in new ways brings it to a bigger stage. Global Citizenship Education encourages students to take what they're learning from service experiences and apply it to the most pressing issues in the U.S. and around the world.
“For me, it’s about putting the student in the center and creating a well-rounded learning environment so each student can develop as a whole person, a person who internalizes the Gospel and goes onto a life of awareness, empathy and compassion,” Dr. Mary Scott, OLu’s Executive Director, told Lavender. “We have so much to learn from our students and their generation. At the same time, they need our guidance and direction. We get to combine those goals with service learning and global citizenship education.”
Click here to read LeeAnne Lavender's profile on Orange Lutheran's Service Learning Educators.
