As a student driven program, Hope-Focused Service-Learning projects empower youth to demonstrate the responsible use of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in building healthy, resilient selves and communities. Youth, parents, teachers, and community members work together to increase protective factors at the individual, family and community level. Meeting genuine community needs through experiential activities creates respect for diversity. Making hope visible and accessible, while meeting genuine community needs enables participants to envision and work toward a desired and positive future. Documenting and telling individual and collective stories of the Hope-Focused Service-Learning experience makes large-scale transformations possible.
A Hope-Focused Service-Learning program is divided into five phases. In the first phase students and their teacher explore hope and service through a particular subject or across subjects. An enduring question that provides a focus for the hope-focused service-learning project that is connected to curriculum often surfaces in phase one. For example, one grade five student asked, "What does hope have to do with being a good citizen?"
In phase two, students and teachers examine how they contribute to a hopeful learning environment while building on service-learning competencies like working on a team, developing open-ended questions and deep listening skills. They also begin examining hope in the school, neighbourhood or community. In so doing, they conduct a needs assessment and then they plan, with the help of community members, their parents and teachers, a hope-focused service project with an evaluative component.
In phase three, students carry out a hope-focused service project in their community or school. Students examine how they are individually and collectively making a difference using hope as their guide. With the help of their teachers, parents, and the community members with whom they interact, students also track what they what they are learning about themselves personally, socially, academically and how that learning may influence future career choices.
In phase four students evaluate, using their hope-folio reflections, how they made a difference in the community individually and collectively. They also do a formal evaluation that is connected to their needs assessment and original hopes. Students have an opportunity to build a demonstrative e-portfolio using digital stories as one means. They also reflect on what they have learned in connection to their enduring question.
In phase five students, parents, teachers and the community celebrate what they learned and the difference they made by making hope visible and accessible in their own lives and in the lives of others in the community.
Assessment for learning occurs at all phases. Teachers, parents and students work toward and track academic, personal, social, citizenship and career outcomes. Students develop self-assessment competencies that will serve them in the future. Comments from grade five students who participated in a pilot Hope-Focused Service-Learning program speak to its importance.
I used to think why do we do service? Now I know that we do it to help others.
Follow your dreams till the end. If you have struggles hope will guide you.
If you look deep down even when you’re depressed you can find a spark of hope.
Hope is a word that means believing in you and others. Hope is related to almost everything you do, like and believe in.
Hope goes everywhere. People really don’t think about hope and they should. Hope is something that should be shared with everyone.
At the beginning of the year when I first heard that we were learning about hope, I thought why hope. We already know all about it. But now I know that what I thought before was wrong. I’m glad that we are learning about hope. It has a lot of different meanings. Hope is a very good thing. It helps you learn more about yourself.
Hope is making people happy so they can have hope. Hope can mean different things to different people. One other thing that I think it is, it is something that drives you toward ACHIEVEMENT!
Hope can be many different things. I think it is something that can help you in the future to move on in life.
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