Learning as Service - A Conversation with Cathryn Berger Kaye

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

Every day we teach content that relates to the Sustainable Development Goals. Every single day our work connects with something going on in the world. Every single day we can think of how that work can be elevated by connecting the knowledge we're developing and making sure the kids have those incremental skills they need to then meaningful action.

Welcome back everybody. Thanks for joining us again for another episode of the Future Learning Design Podcast. My conversation this week is with Katherine Berger Kaye, who is amongst other things, a global leader in service learning. Kathy is the president of CBK Associates and ABCD Books, and she travels throughout the United States and globally providing professional development and conference keynotes as well as in-depth institutes and exceptional education and learning resources. Her specialisms are service learning as well as many other aspects including 21st century competencies, social-emotional learning, and environmental sustainability. Cathy is the author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning: Proven Practical Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility and Academic Curriculum and Social Action. In 2010, she also published Going Blue: A Teen Guide to Protecting Our Oceans and Waterways with Philippe Cousteau, and then in 2012, Make a Splash: A Kid's Guide to Protecting Our Oceans and Waterways. In addition to her extensive consulting in public education, Cathy also has been consulting with the International Baccalaureate, infusing her dynamic service learning model into CAS, the Middle Years Programme, the Career Related Certificate, and Exploring Advancements in the PYP. You can find out more on her website cbkassociates.com and do connect with Kathy on Instagram @documentar_ or on Twitter. You can find the links in the show notes. Hi, Kathy.

Hi, how are you?

I'm very good. Very good. How are you?

Great. Thank you again for inviting me to do this. I really appreciate it.

No, no, not at all. I mean, you are the person when it comes to service learning, so I feel really privileged to be able to talk to you. So thank you for taking the time. Brilliant. The obvious place to start would be what is service learning, but that's a little bit boring. So let's, let's kind of dive into the deep straight away. I'd love to do that if we can, because I've heard you talk about service learning as essentially just good education rather than as a separate thing. So maybe we could just explore that idea first and give a little bit of an overview of, yeah, what, what do you mean by that? What does good education mean to you and how does that connect with service and some of those ideas?

Well, that's a great question, one I haven't been asked before, so I'm grateful for that. When I think about education, I always, it bounces me back to think about instruction and the difference between instruction and education. And instruction means to put in and education means to draw out. And too much of our work in schools is about instruction. We over-direct students, we're controlling and managing them. And these are not recipes for success in my opinion. Education draws students out. It engages their voice. It gives them choices. It has them imagine. It has them be curious. And I know these are all things we aim for when we talk about education, but are we really actualizing them? That's the question. Very often people think of service learning as something you add on to a curriculum, but it's more than that. It really comes from best practices every day that gives students voice all the time. You can't just say, okay, now we're doing service learning. Now let's hear what you think. We need to build that into what we're doing all the time. So when we get to doing things in the community, students have comfort talking about what they think or what they believe or what they're curious about or asking questions, which a lot of students still have resistance to doing. Service learning is built on best teaching practices. And so I do a lot when I do my workshops to really model those processes and service learning really emerges from that everyday work with students and hearing their voice. And one of the questions I think that's least asked in schools right now or anywhere at any time is, what do you think? Simply, what do you think? And I've asked that to many, let's say adolescents, like I'm thinking of right now. And they just look at me like, because they want to know, what do you want me to think?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

So we need to shift that to really create an everyday experience where young people have a voice, have opportunities, and have an ability. And I'll give you one very simple example. This one is one that really bugs me is that we want students to line up and walk single file in the hallway. Like, could you tell me why we need them to do that? There's nowhere you stand in single file except if you're in a bank or in an airport. It's one of the things I quote radicalize in schools is that have kids pair up to walk down the hall, walking and learning how to talk to someone quietly or respectfully. That's really learning how to be with other people in community. So just really basic dynamics so that students have choices and voice in everyday practice. I know that seems like a far cry from the service learning visual, but it really is connected with how we treat students, how we believe in their abilities and how we trust them.

Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. And just then to unpack maybe the, the service element of it, cuz I, you know, that's an idea that I, I've been kind of exploring and hearing a lot, well, in all sorts of ways, but with thinking about impact on the planet and impact in, in the world. And then leadership, talking about servant leadership, leadership and these kinds of ideas. Where do you see that idea of maybe students giving service, being of service, those skills around that? Where does that kind of fit into the learning process?

Well, it's interesting because most every school mission that you look at has being a good citizen or doing for the world.

It's true.

Yeah, because I've been working with the New Delhi— their mission is enter to learn, leave to serve. I mean, this is right there. Yeah. So what does that mean? It means that what we do in education can be for a grade or can be for getting into college. I'm not saying you can't also do those things, but if We take what we're learning in academics, the knowledge and the skills, and we see how can we apply this in meaningful ways to do good, to create something rather than just as a hypothetical, then young people also feel effective and impactful in the world.

Yeah.

And they know that they have a voice and they can do something. There's so many ways that you can simply integrate this. I know there are teachers of very young children who've asked their students, be on the lookout for something that needs our help. So what are you doing there? You're building observation skills with students, which is very necessary for young kids. And you're also having them think outside themselves, which is also good developmentally and for social-emotional growth.

Yeah.

So then they start seeing that, and then you start saying, oh, it could be as simple as students in one school put arrows so students would know which side of the hallway to walk up or down. And that's an impact they see being lived out every day. And you can also do it on larger scales where students see something about hunger in the community and then transform a science class into something that also plants gardens. So you can really take what students see in the world and bring it back in for discussion, for connection to academic, and then for giving them a way to actually quote, do something. Luckily with service learning, we have a paradigm. We have a framework, which I call the 5 stages of service learning, which in the IB world have been adopted also as the CAS stages adopted in many communities as a framework for determining what's meaningful to do. Where's the authentic need, how to really prepare effectively, and how to take meaningful worthwhile action that's in partnership with the community. We never want to do to others, we always want to do with.

Yeah, very nice. No, there's a lot in there. Two other things I'd love to kind of pull out of that, which I've observed seem to be big important themes and concepts for you, are purpose and then process. So, I mean, you've kind of begun to talk about process a little bit there, but if maybe if we could just think about the purpose element. As you say, there's something about meaning and contextualizing learning for learners to really see that there's a, there's a reason why they're learning this stuff, right? How does that come into, I guess, maybe the way that we plan or the way that we think about engaging the learners with the curriculum, for example, you know, rather than having the curriculum as this separate aspect, which is planned separately from the service learning, but actually integrating those two. So there is purpose not only in the impact that you can have in the world as a young person, but also the, the learning that I need in order to do that, to integrate that, that with the more curricular element.

All right. Do we have 5 hours is what I would like.

Yeah. This is a full day workshop, right?

Just had to say that. Yeah.

It's a big question. Sorry. Yeah.

It's a great question. The right question is the most important question because to me, purpose is everything. It just, it really is. And you actually, know the line I use, a purpose of life is a life of purpose. And so how do we, how do we go there? So I think that starts for me in my own experience as a student and how I used to look out the window a lot. I don't know if you were someone who gazed out the window a lot. Why am I learning this? I mean, I think I asked that question more than any other, why am I learning this? And as educators, I often say, how many of you look out the window and say, how, why am I teaching this? I mean, if we don't know the purpose and students know the purpose, and we're just kind of revolving around and doing things and kids do what they're told, but it's not, definitely doesn't connect with them. And it's not often memorable and they're done with it. There's like, they finish a paper. My daughter would write a paper and come home and can't wait to shred it. I mean, there was no connection. So why are we learning? So this is the central point. Now, a lot of people are very goal-oriented and I'm more purpose-oriented. One of my mentors, I know this can be very controversial, so I'm going to throw it in anyway.

Yeah, good. I like controversial.

Yeah. Early on that the word goal comes from the same Latin root as jail. And very often what I found, and that's, I mean, you could still do goal setting. I'm not saying that, that's personal, but in academic sense, when we have a goal, when students get through, they think they're done. If they don't get through, they think they failed. And so if you're done, that means they're done. They're really done. A lot of learning is on the other side of that goalpost to still be unraveled and to be touched and to be figured out. There's no done in learning, right? There's just no done. So that's where process comes in. So when we know the why of what we're doing, that we're doing this, and You mentioned something about service. Very often people think of service being added at the end of a unit of inquiry, for example.

Yeah.

Like they have, well, what are we gonna do with this? That's the wrong place to do it. It should be part of the driving force up front.

Yeah.

Part of those essential questions. You know, what is my role in impacting the environment on an everyday basis? That should be part of the inquiry. So all along the way, they're discovering things so that they can take meaningful action. You know, it's not hard to convince students. I had a teacher I was working with in Shanghai once who was telling her fourth graders she was not going to be in the classroom that day because she was going to be with me all day learning how to bring service learning into the curriculum. I was doing a dive with every level of K-5 of the school to really see how to really build this in. And she told them they were— she was going to learn how they were going to make a difference in the world this year. Well, the next day when she arrived in the class, they came running, "What are we going to do to make a difference?" They're ready. I mean, kids are ready.

Yeah.

Adults who are stubborn, who think this is either too much work or it's too hard. But every day we teach content that relates to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Yeah.

Every single day, mm-hmm, our work connects with something going on in the world. And every single day we can think of how that work can be elevated by connecting the knowledge we're developing and making sure the kids have those incremental skills they need to then take meaningful action. But it doesn't happen without this intent. And that's where the structure of service learning provides those resources.

Now that, that's really interesting actually, cuz I can see a lot of people seeing it as part of the, as you say, towards the end of a unit of inquiry, you are, you are applying your learning into a context to make it real and make it meaningful, but actually the real life context can also be part of that initial stage of of, yeah, the provocation for the learning.

And often teachers are overwhelmed by the idea of having to do it in one unit. So I've developed different curriculum development. I love when I get to do this with schools. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's like a birthday party for me. It's so much fun. And this is interesting because a lot of times developing curriculum for teachers is like just heavy and weighted. I make it light. And one of the things I do with my curriculum approach is just like we want to differentiate academic experiences for students, we should differentiate how we approach curriculum design with teachers. Allows for that. So it's a lot of fun. It's very playful. And what we see is that you can do the whole service learning 5 stages in one unit, or you can use it to connect 3 units, which takes the pressure off and really aligns what we're doing with, with an overarching theme that is rich and robust and gives everyone a deeper understanding of the context, the history, the culture, whatever we're working on. And then we find a way to really manifest what we've learned through meaningful action. And there's 4 kinds of action kids can take, which is direct, indirect, advocacy, or research service, and each are important. However, I often give a caution that if we're only doing indirect service all the time, which often can look like fundraising or donations, if that's all we're doing, it gives the wrong message that we're keeping people and situations at arm's length. So I always advise people to be wary of that. Because what I've learned, especially in this year of this pandemic and COVID, that more than anything, service learning is about relationships.

Yeah.

Most learning is about relationship, but service learning is really about the relationships we build. We come to know ourselves better, which is really important in terms of personal development and growth. We come to know the youth we're working with in partnerships as we identify and manifest our interests, skills, and talents and apply them in meaningful ways. We come to know people in our school that very often we're not talking to, like the person in charge of landscaping who may be very resourceful. Someone who's in the kitchen who knows information. So we build a stronger community and relationships as we work inside and outside of our school. And this is important for personal growth and also for doing things that are more asset-based rather than deficit-based.

Fascinating. That's so interesting. I'd love to, I really would like to ask you about that asset-based stuff. So I'll get to that maybe in a minute, but just take another slight step backwards to the process idea. Because I think, like, as you said, we are obsessed often in education with the product. It's like we rush to the product and yeah, sometimes it locks us in, right? What, when are we done? When are we finished? When's this bit done or this unit done or this exam? But as you say, learning is never done and it's, it is fundamentally a process, but also I'd love to explore the process around, as I understand it, your process is quite exploratory in almost like an action research. Process. Would that be correct?

Oh, completely.

Yeah.

Okay. So you've touched on about 5 topics here. I just love your questions. So I just have to back it up just for a minute, even more, because for me, language defines culture and the language we use. And one of the things we need to do, and like we didn't define service learning up front, but, but schools, when I go there may have 12 different definitions. So I work with groups to create their own definition. I have definitions. I can say a definition, But it's really boils down to one word. And you said this already, the word applying. We're applying what we're doing in meaningful ways. However, one of the words I avoid is the word project. Now I know there's in diploma program in CAS, there's a CAS project that's different. And when we do things co-curricular, you could do a project, but in academic sense, if we call service learning a project, like what's your service learning project? If I asked you that, you would tell me, but you would go right to the end point. You go into what they did.

Yeah.

We planted a garden or we donated food, but I would not know the process. And I am all about process. You're 100% true. I am 100% about process. So I don't use the word servicing project because it's another word that comes to the end.

Yeah.

And these issues don't go away. Hunger isn't resolved because we donated food. And we have to respect that, that these are more complex issues that we can't end. Yeah. So I ask teachers, for example, what are words you would call it besides a project? And we come up with great language. We could call it a a service learning process, a service learning adventure, service learning experience, which is what I tend to call it. Yeah. I like the term learning experiences and how service learning is an extension of that. You could call it a service learning journey, a service learning idea, but I don't use the word project very intentionally because of this.

Yeah.

And that people want to be done. Yeah. So what we wanna do is the process is, like you said, very exploratory and it all is reliant on how well, and we commit to doing the investigation, which is the first stage.

Yeah.

And investigation has two parts, which is the first part, identifying ourselves, what are our interests, skills, and talents so we can harness those. Mm-hmm. Because too much of school, as I said earlier, is about controlling and managing students. And what we wanna do is engage and inspire them. Yeah. And I can't motivate anyone because motivation comes from within. But if I engage a person, then there's likelihood they will choose to be motivated. And once we go into that space, in everything possible. But I can't do that unless I know their interests, skills, and talents. Now you and I do that automatically. If we get a group of people together to do something, to do some work, to build a table, design a school, we're saying, what are the interests, skills, and talents we bring? But we need to do that with students first. From there, it's essential they authenticate a real need. And that's where they do what you call action research. And I developed a method called the MISO method that's used in schools all over the world. And it universities, which I just love. And it redefines research from something you do with Google or Wikipedia to using 4 methods. And that's where the MISO comes in: media, interview, survey, and observation. And this is a game changer because when students do this kind of research, they will identify authentic needs in the community.

And that's— it's such a transferable approach as well, isn't it? Not just for identifying service opportunities, but also just a great way to think about multiple ways to, to kind of gather information about our world and, and process. And so I think that's brilliant. But also I, what I've picked up is as well from your work is that reflection then is a really big part of that. And you wrote a lovely article about reflection, which I'll link to in the show notes. But yeah, maybe could you just perhaps say a little bit there about where, what's the role of reflection throughout that process?

Absolutely. I do wanna just add onto what you said though. That was so helpful. Helpful. I love that you said it, that the MISO method is transferable. And when I was doing a lot of consulting with the IB on the CAS guide, um, they always said, make sure when you do workshops, talk about this because it's transferable to doing extended essay. It's anything, right? You're learning about rocks. You can use this. So I just want to give a shout out to that because that's really critical. And as you say, reflection, I could just sit and do talk reflection for like hours. And I have, I've led 5-hour workshops on reflection because so much more. Than just giving a student some quick questions to answer and then asking them, are you done? That's what I call answering teachers' questions on demand. And I think it's really vital that, and I love assisting schools to unpack what reflection really means.

Yeah.

I'm glad you will link to that article because that's one of my favorite articles I've ever written, the one on meaningful reflection. There's so much to say on it. And, but it's just, we know in learning reflection is important.

Absolutely.

If you're not doing service learning, but it's how we approach it that can be a game changer.

Yeah.

I've been in so many schools where people have said to me, students hear the word reflection, run in another direction.

It's true. Yeah. Especially in IB schools. Yeah.

And so that's why in the CAS guide, for example, it doesn't say it's required, but that it's necessary. It's necessary because we're human. It's what we do. So I ask students to think about what are moments of significance that call them to reflection? And then we talk about, well, how do you know something's significant? And there's a lot of people who know that, and it's a beautiful way to think about it, that it could be because time flew fast, or you had an aha moment, or you noticed something, or you kept ruminating about it. These are things that call us to reflection. And I also ask teachers— this is real important— to think of the ways they reflect. So how do you reflect on a regular basis? What do you do?

I think for me, there's quite a lot of It's almost like it creeps up on you in certain little moments. Yeah. Where you're not quite expecting it. It's like an emergent thing that comes when you allow your brain to kind of stop thinking so hectically. Right.

Exactly. So I find for myself, I have 3 places I do a lot of reflection because of that. One is in the shower. I'm a big shower reflector. And when I'm cooking, because that's like outside of my work. And also I take a walk, like before I, Before I came on this call, I just took a short walk to clear my head and see what comes up. So we have students reflect with paper or talking, which isn't wrong, but what if one day we say, let's just take a walk, grab a partner on the school grounds and take a moment to just share what's going on with you with what we're learning. Have a tea set up in the cafeteria after physics class and surprise the students. They'll think you're crazy, but they'll love it. And they'll want to do it again. If we don't model how we really and truly reflect with students, they will not adopt that or understand it as a life experience. And one of my favorite lines in that article that I do hope that these listeners will go and read is it says that the purpose of reflection is not to reflect, it's to become reflective so that we invite this process in and we welcome it. So I love doing more about reflection. And for me, the word reflection comes from the Latin word reflexio, which means to lean back or look backwards. And that's why I tell people to start, have people lean back or look backwards and see what happens. And from there, build a more robust practice. But I love doing this and really shaking up how people think about reflection, because then students will go towards it rather than run in the other direction.

That's absolutely brilliant. Thank you. And I completely agree because it becomes a task or something you just have to do. So it kind of goes back to that product idea, right? It's like, do the reflection, complete this task, and then we can kind of tick that bit and move on. I mean, often it gets left till the end and it doesn't even happen, right?

One of the best indicators of that is how many teachers, and I've probably been guilty of this too, is it, turn in your 6 reflections on Friday. So when do the students do it? Some people say Thursday night, but no, it's Friday morning on the way to school. And it's 2 friends texting each other. What does that teacher want to hear? So we have to just get outside of that and really transform it. And it's very possible. And anybody who wants to go further and explore that with me, just drop me a note. I'd be glad to help them because I love working in reflection because it's a game changer. Thank you.

No, that's amazing. And then if we could just pivot slightly then to what— I mean, you've kind of touched on some of these things already, but I think you call them curveballs and stumbling blocks in your book about, you know, in relation to service learning. So, you know, there's things that of course, you know, inevitably we try and we make mistakes and we stumble. But I think one of the key ones for me, and I've seen this a lot, is the, the whole idea of doing service to other people as though they're kind of needy people who need our help. And actually the benefits really are for us who are, you know, doing the work and working together to do the project or whatever, but it's actually, it's of dubious benefit sometimes to the recipients of that service. And so for me, that kind of feels like one of the stumbling blocks, but perhaps, yeah, if I could just invite you to say a bit more about some of the other challenges that people face with service learning.

You've hit on, on the key one for me. And that's one of the ways we can correct that is that we can remind ourselves and remind our students and set up our programs to know that when we work with people in a community, we're their guests. Yeah. We're not there to fix them or to repair things. And a colleague of mine, Andy Dorn, who's at NIST in Bangkok, is the one who really had me rethink quite a bit of some of this dynamic that we have. And I'm sure in the beginning I had a deficit model where you go in to see what's wrong here. And what do we need to do about it? With Andy's guidance and conversation and just watching how he worked, I realized that we have to move from what I call this deficit-based model of saying what's wrong to an asset-based model. You know, what's going well in that community? Where do we build from? And it goes back to that very initial part of investigation is where we find out from each other, what are our interests, skills, and talents? We need to do that in community. So what are the interests there? What are the talents? And we see the negative results of doing the wrong thing when we see reflections from students, written reflections, for example, that that say, oh, you know, I gave that child the happiest day of their life. Well, actually, no, that child just smiles a lot, you know, or I'm so glad I don't live in that context. Well, of course I don't want to live in a more impoverished circumstance, but I also want young people to enter that space and see the vitality, the creativity, the joy, the resourcefulness of people and learn from them rather than just feel like pity or shame. That's not what we're— yeah, that's what's going on. And I do know that can happen. It's reparable. We can take a few steps back and review and reshape what we're doing. And this is really important as we take an asset-based model to service learning. It's so—

it's well-intentioned, right? I mean, you know, it's not, it's not that it's ever badly intentioned, of course, but I think that idea of the asset-based or the strengths-based approach for me is such a profound thing actually. It's a real shift because I think the way that we're working now, much more in networks, It's really the only way to create value, whether it's in a business or in an organization or, you know, is to build on the strengths that we can bring together to create these kind of win-win relationships rather than, you know, this kind of more colonial idea of, well, we're gonna go in and fix this problem with these people.

Right. And there's a couple of resources out there that help make it very clear. One is the TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story. That's very powerful. And also I often show a segment from The Landfill Harmonic. It's a a movie about people who live in a landfill and create instruments from found objects. And when young people see these examples, I think they get it. They're quick to understand. I just think we have to make sure we model and have them think along this kind of dynamic. That's really what we need to do. In terms of other challenges or pitfalls, I think one of the most important is getting a clear understanding of what service learning really is and how exciting it can be, not just for students, but also for teachers. I know teachers who say, I don't know how to teach without doing service learning because it brings my learning to life. It's dynamic. And I've known many teachers who are ready to leave the profession who said, oh my gosh, this gave me a whole new outlook on what teaching really is about. So clarity on what it is and looking for possibilities. Uh, I know it's very easy to find the nos, but where's the yes? Like, what are you teaching? I'll often ask that could lend itself to students learning more and having a better understanding by doing something within a community context. And knowing that this will only make learning better. But I will warn you that if you don't like surprises, don't do service learning because it's filled with surprises.

Well, it's the real world, right?

Exactly. And you know, for some teachers, I'll be real frank, we know this is true, some teachers want everything really clearly outlined. They want to know the end before they start, and you can't do that with service learning because you must have room for their voice. And they may want to go in a direction— you may plan direction A, they may have direction B, and it may be better. Everyone involved, including the learning outcomes. Well, this is what I'll often say to teachers is how many of you willing to admit that most teachers are control freaks?

Yeah.

Oh, raise your hand.

So I know. Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. So this means letting go a bit.

Yeah.

I ask teachers, what's your percentage you'll let go? Some will say 5%. Okay. It's a start, but you could get down to, you know, 80%. That's where the learning is exciting. Where we get students to come in and say, you know, what are we going to do about this? And how are we going to really generate ideas? Um, and know that Curriculum will be met. That this is the thing I need to remind you. Service learning is a vehicle that moves the curriculum forward. It doesn't stop learning. People ask me, how do you know you're quote done with the service learning process? And I have two markers. One is you've gone through the five stages of investigation, preparation, action, reflection, demonstration, and you've met your academic markers. Yeah. You've met the knowledge and skills and dispositions you want to elevate in this process. Those both are done. Then, you know, you've done a complete service learning cycle. It could be over 2 weeks. It could be 3 days. It could be a semester. It's hard to say.

Yeah. Very nice. And, and then just lastly, I know you do some really interesting work with social emotional learning, and that clearly is one of the, as you said, the relationships are key to learning, but they're also key in the service learning. And clearly those social emotional outcomes are going to be really important ones that do come out of that process, you know, as well as the knowledge and skills, of course, but these these competencies around social-emotional learning are also gonna be really key. So perhaps just finally, if you wanted to just mention what you're doing in relation to that and service learning.

Absolutely. You know, it's interesting because it was in the late '90s when a school contacted me, a district contacted me in the States in Utah and asked me to come and do work on social, well, they called it character development and service learning combined. And I was excited because it was the first time I'd been asked to do this explicitly. And that was the spark. And from there on, I've always looked at what are the traits we're developing? In students every time we approach service learning. So for example, we can look at it, if we're planting trees, we're developing patience. So there's that level. Like, what are the— is that lovely? I love that.

Yeah. Really nice.

Yeah. Yeah. So what are we— we're always developing these things in our learning. It was service learning. We're adding different elements where students have a chance to also to develop confidence and competencies. So I think these go hand in hand. And when students can get an understanding that, that they're of value which they see when we pull upon their interests, skills, and talents to move something real forward, that's going very deep in a sense of identity and understanding. I want students to be able to enter my classroom. For example, let's say I love organizing and I like taking photographs. I want them to have that level of self-awareness. So if they can do that and they learn those elements from service learning, they know that we need those attributes and those aspects. This really builds a sense of who they are. That is sustainable and that grows. So one of the things I did starting in the early 2000s was I started identifying what are the skills that are lacking, that students are missing, because I found teachers doing more of the service learning than the students, and they're tying it up in a neat bow. Well, service learning is messy, so I can tell right away who's doing the hard work. So I started developing resources and materials so that students would be able to develop these skills of active listening, of asking questions, of resilience, of looking at mindsets, all these things. So it ultimately grew into what is now available through my programs. I work with schools on and provide social-emotional programs and advisory programs so that we can link these attributes that then link directly to service, like building these conditions. And for example, my high school program, I designed it knowing that a lot of the students would be entering DP and need to understand about perspectives and where I'm from and what defines me and different mindsets. So the program is really aligned with developing the abilities to be effective academically and also with service learning.

Amazing. Thank you. I mean, I love how kind of granular you've taken it in terms of breaking that. It's not just doing stuff. It's really like right down to the fine grain of these deep kind of competencies that we're developing through the process. No, amazing.

That's the topic I love talking about, these incremental skills. It's not communication. That's an umbrella word. It's all different elements that add up to And so with the IB, I was actually very helpful with them in the career-related program, developing their professional and personal courses because it broke down those attributes.

Nice.

So this aligns with ATLs and many other aspects. And when we're talking about social-emotional wellbeing, especially during the time of the pandemic, my consulting team and I discovered that early on in the pandemic over a year ago, all the narrative being told was from an adult perspective. And there was no platform. For students to talk about what they were going through or to connect with other youth around the world to see what their experience was. So we created an opportunity called Documentar. It's Spanish for to document. And we have a platform and I'll send the links that you can invite your viewers or listeners to look at it. But it's a way that youth can express what's happening for them in any medium they choose: art, photography, writing, rap. Someone just sent in a musical composition they wrote so that all through this time, Youth have been connecting with each other to share what's going on. And also because of what changed in our society, not just the pandemic, issues of social justice, issues of LGBTQ and the environment, all these issues became relevant and expressed by youth. So on my website, I can send you links for people to find out more about it, but especially as we're looking to the new school year, ways to get young people to be expressive about what's going on for them as they enter academics. Absolutely. This would be a great opportunity.

Brilliant. Well, thank you, Kathy. I mean, You can see it's getting dark here now, but I feel like I could talk to you all night, but it's been such a pleasure to talk to you, really.

I really appreciate it. I really appreciate the interest you have in service learning and the good we can do in the world.

Absolutely. Amazing. Well, thank you. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Please feel free to continue the dialogues with our guests, with us on our blog or on social media or within your own networks.