Service Learning in an Age of Standards

The new standards have to do with application of basic learning. Students take things that at one time they simply memorized and instead take them into real-life settings. The graduation standards offer the opportunity for every student and teacher to bring learning to a higher level. Application, synthesis, analysis and integration of information are what real learning is all about. Jim Grimmer, a teacher of philosophy at Richfield High School in Richfield, Minn., articulates one view of the connection between service learning and academic standards. At a time when academic standards, along with assessments and accountability, represent the big-dog reform across the country, educators would do well to follow Grimmer\u27s example in identifying and articulating those connections