| | Professional History
I taught a peace-and-justice course (high school, in MN) for 18 years (1985-2003), and also coordinated the school's community service requirement. As students tailored their service activities to social justice issues about which they were passionate, stories spread, and I was increasingly invited to do presentations, give workshops, assist with curriculum writing and program development in other schools, and other settings (e.g. faith-communities, community-based organizations). In 2003, I founded the Center for Service-Learning and Social Change, a non-profit that empowers and inspires youth and educators in such learning-and-action. Also in 2003, I became coordinator of service-learning at the St Cloud (MN) Technical College. In 2004, I began to teach in the Civic Leadership Institute, an intensive 3-week program for high school students on social justice and service-learning. (CLI is a collaboration between the Civic Education Project [Northwestern University] and the Center for Talented Youth [Johns Hopkins University].)
Professional Expertise/ Passions
To quote Dan Conrad, a service-learning practioner in Hopkins, MN, "as educators, we are called not so much to be 'dispensors of information', but 'midwives of meaning.'"
That perspective on the meaning and process of education grounds and guides my work.
I have considerable experience in mentoring other educators in the development and integration of key concepts in peace-and-justice education into their work with youth. Participants in our workshops tell me that they appreciate the combination of practical hands-on activities that we provide, and the deeper reflection on the meaning of those activities and the purpose of this work.
I have also received many affirmations for articles that I have written that provide educators with valuable perspectives involved in peace-and-justice work.
My experience, as well as my personal background, are particularly attuned to the process of working with youth (and adults) from relatively advantaged backgrounds (as distinct from working with marginalized, or so-called "at-risk", youth).
Our Center for Service-Learning and Social Change coordinates an annual Social Justice Conference with Youth (now in its 9th year) for youth in grades 6-12 in schools, and several weekend immersion retreats (now in its fifth year) for youth in grades 8-11 in faith communities. These programs are avenues for integration of processes of learning-and-action into these schools and faith-communities.
What I'm Most Excited About in My Current Work
Paul Rogat Loeb, the author of a book entitled Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, offers the following perspective:
[People often] feel overwhelmed and wonder whether [their] actions can matter. . . .
People are spurred to action not so much by knowing the right facts and numbers as by hearing stories and developing a worldview that make sense of the confusion and contradiction in their lives. (p. 12)
Our Center has developed several strategies for documenting and sharing stories of youth and adults engaged in peace-and-justice learning-and-action.
We have also articulated a framework of key concepts that we have found to be valuable (and that we believe are essential) in this work; and we have compiled and developed creative, effective learning activities for each of those concepts.
During the past year, I have been invited to adapt this framework and these activities into several settings with adults -- and discovered that they are very transferable; and many of the adults have expressed deep appreciation for both our content and our process.
I have also become increasingly connected to practitioners interested in the "values" dimension of service-learning and peace-and-justice work, and in the spirituality that it can contain. (Note: While that spirituality often finds expression in specific religious traditions, I have experienced a number of other avenues for its expression, as well.)
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