Episode 409: Service Learning: Take Action, Learn, and Reflect

Take student success to the next level through the power of service learning! Join us in conversation with Patti Gilmer and Donny Robertson of Calhoun City Schools to learn more.

TRANSCRIPT

Ashley Mengwasser: Good day. Good day. Welcome to Classroom Conversations, the platform for Georgia's teachers. I'm host Ashley Mengwasser, here to serve our award-winning series as presented by the Brilliant Minds at the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting as a place for our educators to share and learn. Grab some gloves, a wheelbarrow, and a water bottle. This is a hands-on episode traversing into a special branch of experiential learning whereby students perform transformative tasks in their home communities. Service learning in our schools ushers in powerful community cohesion and change through any number of vehicles. It's learning about a topic while learning about ourselves, while learning to think in a new way. It's so meta. Following the fulfillment of a service learning project, that empty corner in your town driven by hundreds of times without a second look becomes the community garden full of literal life, germinating produce and connections. The once unfamiliar assisted living community becomes the home of some older friends. Who is better equipped to guide us down the perfectly planted service learning path than a truly iconic duo sharing a lifelong vision and a powerful mission? You know Sonny & Cher, Barack and Michelle, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, R2-D2, C-3PO, even Shrek and Donkey. But do you know Donny and Patti? Donny Robertson and Patti Gilmer are both sponsors of their National Honor Society at Calhoun High School, part of the Calhoun City School District in Gordon County. Donny's entering his 24th year as a teacher and is now teaching physical science and physics. Patti earned her 30-year milestone in education AKA retirement, yet is still assisting Calhoun with some pretty impressive NHS service projects. Welcome Donny and Patti.

Patti Gilmer: Thank you.

Donny Robertson: Thank you, Ashley. What an introduction.

Ashley Mengwasser: Did you enjoy that?

Donny Robertson: Wow.

Patti Gilmer: Thank you.

Donny Robertson: I didn't know where that was going, but that was pretty cool.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, good. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Donny Robertson: I enjoyed it.

Ashley Mengwasser: You two are a remarkable duo. Our audience is going to hear about it. My first question is for you, Patti. Why are you still working?

Patti Gilmer: I love what I do. I love kids. I like seeing them get inspired and I believe in NHS and getting kids plugged into service is huge so that they can make their communities better forever. So I'm working part-time as a retired teacher.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's a beautiful thing. I want to know how you both came to enter this here education field. Donny, would you tell us your story?

Donny Robertson: Well, so I majored in public and social services out of Kennesaw State, and I played baseball there with a guy whose mom was the assistant superintendent with Gordon County Schools. And as I was coming out of college, I thought I was going to go work for DFCS or somewhere like that, and she offered to hire me as a special educator in Gordon County.

Ashley Mengwasser: Look at that.

Donny Robertson: And I thought, I don't have a teaching degree. She said, "Oh, no problem. We can get a provisional certificate. You can work on your degree." And the rest is history. I became a teacher.

Ashley Mengwasser: Here you are.

Donny Robertson: Here I am.

Ashley Mengwasser: Almost two and a half decades later.

Donny Robertson: Yeah. It's flown by.

Ashley Mengwasser: What's your story to teaching Patti?

Patti Gilmer: I went to the University of Georgia as a business major and realized my freshman year that was not my calling. And so I went through a club called Come University that connected me with volunteering in a school and it clicked and I've lived it ever since.

Ashley Mengwasser: Ever since. Well, you both have a natural propensity to serve and we'll get into that in just a minute, but why do you think teaching is or isn't a rewarding profession?

Donny Robertson: Well, it is, so I don't think it isn't.

Ashley Mengwasser: Thank you.

Donny Robertson: So, it is because you just get to see the growth in kids, man. You get to pour into kids and see the growth in kids. I think every educator has that story about some kid that when they first met them, things weren't going well and four or five years later, six years later, all of a sudden these kids are growing and they're transformed into somebody you never really imagined they could be.

Ashley Mengwasser: They could be.

Donny Robertson: And it was all because of some educator, some coach maybe inspired them and stuck with them, didn't give up on them.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.

Donny Robertson: So yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: It is rewarding.

Donny Robertson: It is.

Ashley Mengwasser: And I know Patti, you mentioned that you actually get recommended against going into the profession at times by teachers who are maybe burnt out or struggling. Would you say that the career has been rewarding for you?

Patti Gilmer: Absolutely, and I would recommend it. I wish my daughter would teach, but-

Ashley Mengwasser: Really?

Patti Gilmer: I'm hoping she changes her mind. But absolutely, I've loved my career and that's why I'm still in it and plan to be for years. It's very rewarding and I think the more you get plugged in with kids and do trips with kids and get to know them on a different level and do community service with them, it makes the job even better. It's more rewarding.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. You said your daughter, you mentioned her, she actually had Donny as a teacher.

Patti Gilmer: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: What's he like as a teacher?

Patti Gilmer: She adores him. He gives amazing life advice along with his teaching.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'd love a piece of that if he got some time.

Patti Gilmer: He just wants them to be good people and he's very invested and they know that, so he has a huge impact on our students.

Donny Robertson: Well, so most of these kids are going to leave in our community, but they're going to live in a community for sure.

Ashley Mengwasser: For sure.

Donny Robertson: So wouldn't you-

Ashley Mengwasser: Why not?

Donny Robertson: Yeah, wouldn't you want-

Ashley Mengwasser: Well-rounded individuals.

Donny Robertson: Well-rounded kids entering your community? So yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: Well put.

Donny Robertson: Thank you, Patti for the kind words.

Ashley Mengwasser: I knew Patti would represent you so well. She's your new publicist Donny. I'm going to take that on. Can I get a fun fact about each of you personally? Why don't we start with you, Patti?

Patti Gilmer: My fun fact, because my roommate at Georgia got to go to Cortona, Italy for a summer, and I'm like, I want to do that. And so the only thing I could do because my classes were really structured was student teach in England. And so, I applied and lived in a castle and taught at an all-girls school and there were like 80 American students there and we traveled all over England and Europe while I was student teaching. So I would highly recommend that to people to study abroad and those kind of immersive experiences are amazing.

Ashley Mengwasser: You lived in a castle?

Patti Gilmer: I did.

Ashley Mengwasser: Is there any publicly misperceived notion about castles? Do we have anything wrong?

Patti Gilmer: No. They were the-

Ashley Mengwasser: It's exactly-

Patti Gilmer: -staircases and-

Ashley Mengwasser: It's all there.

Patti Gilmer: Oh yes, it's all there. It was amazing.

Ashley Mengwasser: You fact-checked it.

Patti Gilmer: I always do like a quiz at the beginning of the year, how well do you know Ms. Gilmer? And I always put, I lived in a castle and they always say false.

Ashley Mengwasser: False.

Patti Gilmer: I'm like-

Ashley Mengwasser: Gotcha.

Patti Gilmer: I did.

Ashley Mengwasser: I love the two truths and a lie. It's a great time. What's your fun fact Donny? Have you lived in a castle?

Donny Robertson: No. No, I've not lived in a castle and I'm not royalty, but I do have nine toes.

Ashley Mengwasser: There we go.

Donny Robertson: Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: We're going to run the gamut on this fun fact.

Donny Robertson: A little ladder accident with flip-flops. Just that's-

Ashley Mengwasser: Don't do that.

Donny Robertson: Yeah, that's about all I'm going to say about that.

Ashley Mengwasser: A ladder.

Patti Gilmer: That's some of his life advice, don't use a ladder.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's like Mr. Robertson's 10 commandments. You should pass those out. That could be marketed as well by your publicist Patti here.

Donny Robertson: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Wow, okay. What age did that happen to your porto?

Donny Robertson: That happened in 2014, so I'm just coming up on a decade without my toe.

Ashley Mengwasser: You're doing fine.

Donny Robertson: I'm doing fine.

Ashley Mengwasser: Which toe are you missing?

Donny Robertson: I think it's the little piggy that went to the market.

Ashley Mengwasser: No.

Donny Robertson: Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm so sorry.

Donny Robertson: That's okay.

Ashley Mengwasser: Well, you still have your wits about you, so we have to thank you for that.

Donny Robertson: Only a toe.

Ashley Mengwasser: Only a toe. A fact of the matter that you two have imparted to me that I believe is true is that service learning is truly taught to us, someone shows us how first. I mean, I remember doing care packages as a Girl Scout. My mom remembers cleaning up litter in the park with one of her clubs in school when she was younger. What was your first foray into service as a younger person?

Patti Gilmer: Mine was definitely through my church. I remember our youth group used to go every fall for a couple of weekends and clean up elderly people's yards. Could have been anybody from our congregation or just someone that we knew was in need. It was so fun to be with my friends serving, but it was rewarding to see how appreciative people were so that it kind of inspired me to always find a place to plug in and help. And I wanted to pass that on to my students because I know they'll get more out of it than they ever put into it. That's what we always tell our kids.

Ashley Mengwasser: For you, Donny?

Donny Robertson: Well, so I did some of the same things at church, but really the first time I can remember, I would say a service project, it was when I was at Kennesaw State playing baseball. Our team went to the Cobb Civic Center in collaboration with MUST Ministries I think and for Thanksgiving, we shopped for a family basically. They brought all the food there and we made up Thanksgiving meals for the families. And I don't know how many families were served, but I do remember that we were there all morning long and people just kept coming. So really, I remember thinking then like, man, there's a real need. This is the United States of America, but the people are hungry in the United States and you don't see that unless you're in those kinds of situations. So anyway, it just exposed me to serving.

Ashley Mengwasser: It was eye-opening.

Donny Robertson: It was eye-opening, yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: And it is transformative. There are so many great quotes out there about service learning. I'm sure you've upheld these in your classrooms. There's, "We rise by lifting others." Robert Ingersoll. "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." That's Gandhi. I like this one, Tom Brokaw. "It's easy to make a buck. It's harder to make a difference."

Donny Robertson: Yes, exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's a good one. And I think this is might be my favorite, Benjamin Franklin founding father, "Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves." It's just the absence of that me first mentality. Do you have a favorite quote or expression you like?

Donny Robertson: Well, I've got a few of them, but one, Ronald Reagan. It basically says we can't help everybody, but everybody can help somebody.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.

Donny Robertson: So, it doesn't matter who you are, you can be of help to somebody.

Ashley Mengwasser: There's that human mentality we have of the problem's too big, I won't make a difference that speaks directly against that. What about you, Patti?

Patti Gilmer: I just love the saying, and I say this to my students a lot, in a world where you could be anything, be kind. And I think when you're serving there is this kind spirit and anything I think that we've done, there's always a positive spirit and a kind spirit. And so if we can all be kind, everything's better.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. You two are glowing actually side by side. I feel like I might be levitating right now. This is very, very spiritual. Let's break down for our audience. We'll define it shortly, but just a few fun facts. Service learning is, and service learning isn't. Service learning is, give me a couple bullets for that.

Patti Gilmer: Educating on a need and then finding a way to take action to meet the need. And then always coming back to reflect on what did we get out of it or the population we were trying to serve, what did they get out of it? And I think that's usually a process we try to look at. And we want kids to have the ideas, it's not necessarily our ideas of what we want to do. We want them to see a need in our community, and that's what we ask for through our interact... He does Interact Club and we do NHS together. And so we really want it to be student driven.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.

Donny Robertson: So, service learning, I mean, there's a service you're providing based on a need, but if you don't learn anything from the process then it's really not service learning.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's right.

Donny Robertson: So, you got to learn something in the process. And it may be that you learn the community has more needs than what you've thought.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's true.

Donny Robertson: On the service level, you recognize this one need. Now when you dive into it... And we're doers. Maybe we don't plan as much as we should sometimes because we want to do so much. And when we get into whatever we're doing, then we realize, hey, this should have been included in our plan because there is a need deeper than we thought.

Ashley Mengwasser: Right. So service learning isn't just totally random, it's inspired-

Donny Robertson: It's inspired, yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: By something that your students see. And we're going to talk about the process by which they find and determine some projects. Let's transition to talk about these wonderful National Honor Society students that you both sponsor. How do they qualify, and who makes up your club?

Patti Gilmer: The first qualification is they have a 95 or higher GPA. And then from there they do a pretty extensive application to show that they're involved, already have some leadership. Their attendance is good, they're participating in community service already. There's a certain number, 40 required hours before they can even be accepted into the club. So just overall involvement, not just academic to be in National Honor Society.

Ashley Mengwasser: How many students are in there? What's the makeup? Different kinds of athletes and-

Patti Gilmer: Oh, absolutely.

Donny Robertson: Diverse group of students.

Patti Gilmer: We usually induct about 50 per class.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, that's a good size.

Patti Gilmer: It is a good size.

Ashley Mengwasser: A very good size. Okay. And a couple of projects, you mentioned they've got about 20 hours a year that they need to complete. What are a couple of their key projects that they do?

Patti Gilmer: They are required to have 20 hours and we do say 10 need to be action-based, which are some of the ones we actually sponsor. And they can either do donations, money hangers for our clothes closet, time in the clothes closet. So a student a few years ago brought the Shop with a Stinger program, which is where needy children in our elementary and primary school get to shop for Christmas with four of our students paired together. So they donate money. We meet at the school, we have volunteer bus drivers come load them all up. They take them all to Walmart, they get to shop together. It's so much fun.

Ashley Mengwasser: Sounds fun.

Patti Gilmer: They're all in Santa hats and they come back and get to pick out the wrapping paper and wrap them together and we have Christmas music. And his wife was Mrs. Santa and my husband was Santa.

Ashley Mengwasser: This bond is deep, you two.

Patti Gilmer: It's just a joyful time for the holiday for kids who have a need. And you can see in our kids' eyes they got way more out of it than just the kids getting the gifts. It's eye-opening for our students.

Donny Robertson: And so, what happens with NHS, a lot of kids, they want to wear these cords and these, what do you call them?

Ashley Mengwasser: The stoles.

Donny Robertson: The stoles, yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: At graduation.

Donny Robertson: They want to wear the stoles at graduation. So maybe that was their goal in the beginning. They think they're going to wear this stole, it's going to look cool. But then they realize, I think, that that stole, it's just a stole, but what they're doing to earn that stole is so much more important. So that might be the little carrot you're dangling to get them to join. But once they join and they figure out what we're doing, that stole, it's not as important as it once was. And now the service is.

Ashley Mengwasser: They're part of a movement.

Donny Robertson: They're part of a movement and the service is more important. So to me, they're part of a movement and it's growing every year and I'm hoping this year we're going to serve 100 different families this year. I don't know, what was the number last year?

Patti Gilmer: We had about 220 students participating, so we had about 60 kids that we bought Christmas for.

Ashley Mengwasser: That helped? Shop with a Stinger because your school mascot at Calhoun-

Patti Gilmer: We are yellow jackets.

Ashley Mengwasser: The yellow jackets. Very nice.

Patti Gilmer: I did have a student this year, she realized she was short on her service hours, and it was about three weeks before graduation. And I'm like, "Well, you have to get them. So I need a student to be tutored. He's trying to graduate and he's failing this class." And so she came two periods a day 'cause she was pretty much finished and she was glowing when he passed that class.

Ashley Mengwasser: He passed?

Patti Gilmer: He passed, and he got to graduate. It was a senior trying to graduate. I'm like just things like that where I wasn't going to just let her buy hangers or clothes.

Ashley Mengwasser: There was a need.

Patti Gilmer: I need some action. And she's like, "Man, that felt good." And I'm like, "He needed you."

Ashley Mengwasser: And look at the lesson that that teaches. Well, let's look specifically at how service learning can be supported in our schools. You guys have done a pretty good job hinting at service learning and what it is, but can you define it and talk more specifically about the process that you're having students engage in? The learning piece of it.

Donny Robertson: Since it's a club, we really don't have a class we're attaching this service learning to. It's a club. So-

Ashley Mengwasser: Students from any class.

Donny Robertson: Yeah, students from any class can join these clubs as long as they meet the requirements. We're looking at leadership skills, we're looking at empathy. We're looking at all kinds of different social skills that they're learning in the process. So to us, that's important. Adopt A Grandparent, the other community service project that we did, some of these kids didn't know how to interact with older people. They didn't have grandparents, so they didn't.

Patti Gilmer: So, we had to have that conversation of sit close when you talk to them. Sometimes they just want you to listen 'cause they don't have relatives nearby. They don't have visitors.

Ashley Mengwasser: Family to talk to. What is the Adopt A Grandparent service project that you've done?

Patti Gilmer: Last summer, my daughter actually pointed out that during COVID, she noticed how lonely my own parents were because they could not be around us. And so we have a few assisted living homes in Calhoun and I have friends that work there, and so we reached out and met with them and they're like, "We need youth coming in to visit. It just brings life to them. It brings joy. They want hear your stories and they love to tell their stories." And so we just had the residents fill out information about them and we gave it to our different kids. And our first night was an ice cream social and then we went back once a month and played bingo with them. We went to Valentine's party and-

Ashley Mengwasser: This is an ongoing relationship. I love that.

Patti Gilmer: Oh, yes, we're going to continue. We're going to continue it. We hope every year our kids have ideas and impact they want to make on the community, and I don't know what they're going to want to do this year, but we're open to a system and-

Donny Robertson: Well, some of these things, we want to be sustainable. I mean, the Shop with a Stinger and the Adopt A Grandparent, it's working, it's teaching. We come back and we reflect on what's happened. So we don't want to just every year pick a totally different service project and bounce from thing to thing. We'll keep some pretty consistent, I think, and those are the two that we've found that a good number of kids can get involved with and we can impact more kids and a broader range of people in the community.

Patti Gilmer: There was a sweet bond with some of our students and those residents.

Donny Robertson: Oh, yeah.

Patti Gilmer: Like one little lady, she was like, "I'm changing my will. Donny's going to get everything."

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh my gosh.

Patti Gilmer: I mean, they look forward to those visits, but our kids looked forward to going. It was a big-

Ashley Mengwasser: Just to be seen and that human dignity piece. And I think you really nailed it with what you just said, Donny, that you're not in a classroom. There's not a test on this, but that reflection piece where you come back and you regroup and you debrief and you talk about it, that's kind of where you're reflecting on what skills were gained.

Donny Robertson: Oh, yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. That's really nice. Okay, very good. What components are you looking for in a strong service learning project? What does it need to be to work?

Patti Gilmer: Students really have to have a passion for what they're doing. And some students you see have a passion for children, and some students have a passion for elderly. And it's really interesting to see the ones who consistently came back to visit because some people, again, like Donny said, were not comfortable with being around elderly or people who maybe had some dementia. It was out of their comfort zone, but I think it helped some of them see I have a passion for this population and some of them even talked about, it's kind of helped them decide what kind of major they want to do. They realize the kid thing's not their thing, but they really... My daughter especially, she has a connection with elderly people and it's something that I think that she will continue.

Donny Robertson: These projects, there's a collaboration piece and the kids they really need to collaborate and work together, use some teamwork, brainstorm. There's some problems they're going to have to solve, so they're using some critical thinking skills, problem solving. I mean, it's all those things that you're trying to hone in so when they leave Calhoun High School they're better equipped to go to college or the world of work. They're going one or the other. They're going to college, world of work. So all those skills can be sharpened through service learning.

Ashley Mengwasser: Exactly. What benefits do you see in students? You know them personally, you're watching them grow through these experiences. What are the benefits, even unintended benefits you've seen?

Donny Robertson: It's the growth. I mean, it's the growth and seeing... Well, I just saw something on maybe, I don't know what it was, but anyways, it was about a kid that took over a school bus, an 11-year-old kid. The guy was having a medical episode and the kid was alert and he took over the school bus and stopped the school bus and kept it from going off the highway or whatever. And they interviewed all the other kids on the bus and what were you thinking? What was going on here? All the other kids were saying, "Well, I was on my cell phone."

Ashley Mengwasser: They didn't even know what was going on.

Donny Robertson: "I had my AirPods in." They had no idea what was going on. So I think the cool thing about these projects, these kids getting together and collaborating, I mean, they're not on cell phone, they're not-

Ashley Mengwasser: Nope.

Donny Robertson: They got to work together.

Ashley Mengwasser: They're in the present moment.

Donny Robertson: They're in the present. There's a song, I don't even know the title, but it's talking about keep me in the moment. I want to be kept in the moment, and I think if we can teach these kids to be kept in the moment, so many opportunities are going to be seized than I'm on my cell phone, TikTok and whatever it is, and we're going to miss some moments that we can make an impact on other people. So we're either add or subtractors, right? So you're either adding to somebody's life or you're subtracting from it probably.

Ashley Mengwasser: I love that.

Donny Robertson: So don't quote me on that, that's John Maxwell thing, but-

Ashley Mengwasser: It's nice to be reminded.

Donny Robertson: Yeah, but you're either adding or subtracting in somebody's life and we want kids to learn to add to people's life.

Ashley Mengwasser: Exactly. To be present, to be active members of society. It's the action piece of service learning action piece that you talked about.

Donny Robertson: The action piece. It's very competitive to try to get into these colleges, and we're writing recommendation letters all the time for kids to get into colleges and says, "Hey, can you recommend me for this college?" And they've not done any community service or nothing that's extraordinary, it's sort of hard to recommend them. So when I'm writing these letters of recommendation and you got a kid that gives you plenty of material to work with and they've volunteered, they've got all kinds of hours, they've headed... I wrote Patti's daughter a letter of recommendation-

Ashley Mengwasser: Glowing, of course.

Donny Robertson: Yes, but I had a lot to work with. I mean, she's headed up many different projects and she's got all her hours of community service and this and that, and it was easy to write that letter of recommendation and colleges want to see that.

Ashley Mengwasser: Right. So this isn't just school, this is life.

Donny Robertson: Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: This is paying it forward into who they will be in the future.

Donny Robertson: Yes. Oh, yeah.

Patti Gilmer: And we hope... I mean, a lot of them, like he said, they may try to join the Key Club or the Beta Club, so they're like, oh, I want a lot of cord at graduation and I want my stole, and then once they start writing those college applications, they see the value in the requirements. So at times, and we always try to tell them, find those things that you really enjoy doing. We don't want you just to buy your hours because you're not gaining anything from that. But once they all started writing their applications and essays, a lot of their essays, I proofed a lot of their essays and they were asked how they were and it was the involvement in what they gained from the service learning opportunities that they ended up writing about a lot of the times 'cause that was a lot more impactful than writing the English paper and taking the math test. Which was important, but they gained so much In a deeper way when they participate in the service learning.

Donny Robertson: You're right, Patti, I read a couple of those letters myself, and I can think of a couple that they specifically talked about how much of a connection they felt with the community because of the services they've done.

Ashley Mengwasser: Service-learning experience and also job interviews. If you can talk in a job about a real world difference that you've made, managing a project, being a part of a team, it all comes full circle. Any other benefits Patti that you can think of?

Patti Gilmer: Connection with local businesses. I mean, our assisted living home and Walmart, that's where we shopped. I mean, we do have to collaborate with them to make it happen and we didn't just show up at Walmart.

Donny Robertson: Right. Oh, yeah.

Patti Gilmer: And meeting with assisted living, what are some needs? What would they like to play? Would they enjoy doing things outside? It helps those kids that go and seek those opportunities with our local businesses and that collaboration is key. And other groups I've noticed since we started doing the Adopt A Grandparent, there are more groups from our school going there to do things, and so I think it's helped for other groups to get plugged in there as well.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. So National Honor Society is your offering to students and the service hours are a requirement. Are there other school clubs or organizations where service is a required piece of it to help promote those?

Patti Gilmer: Our Beta Club as well.

Ashley Mengwasser: Beta Club?

Donny Robertson: Beta Club and Interact Club. I'm also the sponsor of the Interact Club. So we've adopted the mile in front of our school and we have kids that go over to the local Boys and Girls Club and they volunteer their time to tutor and mentor and things like that. And we're always looking. We're trying to find an international project to get involved with right now.

Ashley Mengwasser: That would be cool.

Donny Robertson: And I think I've come up with one to propose to the kids, so I don't know. We'll see. The Interact Club is affiliated with the Rotary Club.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, yeah.

Donny Robertson: So, it's community service club, actually, I mean. And most towns in America I think have a rotary club.

Patti Gilmer: Our Key Club does.

Donny Robertson: And Key Club, yeah.

Patti Gilmer: Key Club, they have to do ours as well.

Ashley Mengwasser: So, there are many outlets, and the required piece doesn't deter students. It actually gets them to click into the importance of service learning, you think?

Donny Robertson: Yeah. And kids are busy. Kids are busier than they've ever been. So it's really awesome to see our kids wanting to do these things, knowing how busy they are because if they're involved in drama or football, baseball, all these other sports, whatever, we want them to be involved, but then you see these kids that are involved in all these other things and they're still doing the community service. They're still doing the service projects.

Patti Gilmer: And that tends to be the ones that show up. I think busy bodies are better bodies.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, exactly. This paradigm has great interpersonal impact. I'd like to hear another student's story of the impact on a student of service learning, and maybe also the impact or benefit to an organization that benefited from a service learning project. I loved hearing about the grandparent who said, "I'm going to put them in my will." What other great stories of success do you know?

Donny Robertson: Well, I just have a kid that in the Interact Club, he really just talks about the leadership that he's gaining from being an officer in the Interact Club and he wants to do more. And he realizes that without a strong leader of the club, that the club doesn't go.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's right.

Donny Robertson: I realized that I need to be a better leader, and the only way to be a better leader is to take charge and lead and ask questions and be inquisitive. I mean, I encourage them to ask questions. I don't know all the answers, but if I don't know the answer, we'll find the answer. We'll work on it. We'll find it. So the biggest thing is just doing.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, doing. Just doing.

Donny Robertson: If you're a DIYer and you don't know how to do something, I mean, you have no excuse nowadays because there's a video on YouTube for it.

Ashley Mengwasser: A treasure trove of video content.

Donny Robertson: Yeah. Just if you want to do, there's a way to do it. So if you want to do it, come to us and we will try to get it done somehow some way.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. And you're preparing students for careers through this process because they're able to identify needs. They're able to develop their leadership skills. They're learning how to be collaborative, how to have empathy. One thing that I always struggled with was the group project piece of it, right? Because they are having to work as a team, do you think that builds their collaboration skills?

Donny Robertson: So, the group project thing, when I talk to kids about group projects, I'm like, "Hey, this is real life because when you're in the world of work you're on a team, and even in education we're on a team and if you don't get your work done, it slows the whole team down, so you've got to get your work done. And if you don't, then you're the weakest link of the team and then you might not have a job."

Ashley Mengwasser: There's a life lesson.

Donny Robertson: Yeah. So you might not have a job because if they can do that job without your input and your work-

Ashley Mengwasser: Then you're not an invaluable member of the team.

Donny Robertson: Right. So you got to plug in, and you got to do what you say you're going to do. Okay. So there's been a couple of times where I'm showing up to the stadium after a football game and our NHS kids, I've told them, I said, "I'm going to be there, but I don't want to be there by myself. So I've got to rely on you guys. I mean, I'm relying on you guys, you guys that say right now, if you're raising your hand and you say you're going to be there, you need to be there. If you don't raise your hand and you're telling me I can't be there, no big deal, but if you're raising your hand saying, I'm going to be there, you can count on me. I'm showing up in the morning. I need you to be with me because I can't clean the whole stadium by myself."

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes, that's a commitment.

Donny Robertson: And they commit, and I mean, it works out. It works out.

Ashley Mengwasser: Let's end with Donny and Patti, the dynamic duo, with some service-learning projects educators can just begin with to create enthusiasm in their schools. We've been talking a lot about this as an extracurricular organizational capacity, but it seems like classroom teachers could have a project within just their own class, right? Anything you want to recommend as a starting point service project?

Patti Gilmer: I would definitely recommend if a teacher or a school is trying to get involved in service learning is to just have an open discussion with your students and let them identify needs that they see in the community. And once that's identified, have them or the teacher reach out to any organization or local business that we think we can partner with. And once the idea is born, it's pretty easy to get it going when there's passion behind it.

Donny Robertson: The school social workers, I mean, you can tap into those guys and those people they know the needs of the community.

Ashley Mengwasser: That they do.

Donny Robertson: They know the needs. I was speaking to one of the ladies in the office, I actually saw her out shopping a couple days ago and I told her about a mission trip I went on and she was like, "We got those kids in our school. We got those families in our school." So we had a 20-minute conversation about all the needs of kids in our school right now.

Ashley Mengwasser: People have different backgrounds, yeah.

Donny Robertson: Right Now, so yeah.

Patti Gilmer: I mean, we always collect canned food and things like that and have a competition with classes, and in middle school, that was huge. Homeroom teachers really get competitive where they might bring a thousand items in so that's something small, and I think we can think of areas outside of just cans. And as we're talking, I'm sitting here thinking, I have a student, she's an officer for us this coming year and she told me that was the thing she was most excited about NHS is she's always wanted to do community service. She just didn't even know where to find the opportunities to do it. And I think we need to try to do more for our underclassmen and provide opportunities because I think so many of them would want to plug in, they just don't know how to get started.

Ashley Mengwasser: How to start. And if they did one of these low hanging fruit projects, then they can come to you guys with that passion project you were talking about. I really care about this. I want to do this.

Patti Gilmer: Right. And so we can even just say because our clothes closet, we have kids who need and it starts getting cold, they don't have pants. And we'd probably need to push that out more of this is sweatshirt week and we need everybody to bring a sweatshirt in who can. The easy things, and just get them started and then do more school wide, not just our club. I think we probably could do that this year, Donny.

Ashley Mengwasser: Look at this growth happening before our eyes.

Donny Robertson: Well, even like you're saying, the easy stuff, I mean, yeah, you might want to start with something easy because you try to bite off too big of a chunk, it gets overwhelming. So even things like the pop tops for the Ronald McDonald House.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, yeah. I didn't think about that.

Donny Robertson: I mean, come on, it doesn't take much effort to break one of those things off.

Ashley Mengwasser: It sure doesn't.

Patti Gilmer: In box stops we used to do a lot with those.

Donny Robertson: It doesn't take that much effort. And that could make a huge difference on a... I mean, to say if one teacher does it, eh, you're thinking, eh, but if the whole school did it...

Ashley Mengwasser: Again, a movement.

Donny Robertson: Yeah, if the whole school did it, I mean, make a huge difference.

Patti Gilmer: And I think it's just a conversation with students because they all see where needs are. And if we just ask them, "Hey, where would you like to put your time and energy?" If we just leave it to them, they're going to probably do more than the adults. And I can tell you the happiest teachers are the teachers who are involved, the ones who do the extra stuff. It may be extra time, but it makes our jobs so much more fun because kids in that level and you just get to see the reward of it. So teachers who just come in and then go home at the end of the day, they're not near as happy. I can promise you.

Ashley Mengwasser: That fulfillment level is lower.

Patti Gilmer: Exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser: And you know Patti because you've completed the 30-year commitment to this, so you definitely have some follow through.

Donny Robertson: She never leaves.

Ashley Mengwasser: And she's still there. Donny, Patti, thank you so much for being with us today.

Patti Gilmer: Thank you so much for having us.

Donny Robertson: Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser: You have just a wonderful light and a giving spirit, and I know that that is rubbing off on your students, so job well done. Service learning becomes a way of life, audience. "The more we serve, the more we want to serve," Donny says. Over time, the service learning model to take action, learn and reflect gets built into our actual makeup. Notice how you're serving your students by upholding this practice. Identifying ways for students to serve now will serve students for life. We thank you for that service. You're a great teacher. I've got care packages to make and grandparents to adopt, but I'll be back with more in Classroom Conversations next week. Bye-bye.

Funding for Classroom Conversations is made possible through the School Climate Transformation Grant.