Shining a Spotlight on the Significance of Service Learning at GNS—Part 1

At Glenlyon Norfolk School, our students are expected to participate in service learning. But why is this such an integral part of the student experience at GNS? 

As an International Baccalaureate school, our educational programme values service by centring it in age and stage-appropriate ways at all grade levels. In addition, service experiences contribute to the substantive experiential learning requirement for the Dogwood Diploma, the graduation certificate for students in BC. 

In a five-part series, we will explore service learning, and its many facets at GNS, through interviews with teachers, leaders, and students of our Senior School. 

What is service learning?

We call it service learning because it combines service to a local, national, and/or global community with defined learning outcomes. This provides an authentic learning experience for the students while meeting the needs of the relevant community. As part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP), students in Grades 6 to 10 engage in Service as Action (SA). Students learn by doing: “Through service as action, they become ‘actors’ in the ‘real world’ beyond school.” (MYP: Principles into Practice 2014). 

Our ultimate goals of service learning at GNS are for our students to learn through real-world experiences, effect positive change in the world, and continue their work and learning through these activities beyond graduation. 

How does participating in service learning help students feel like they matter? 
~ Adrienne Smook, Service Coordinator

In her book, Never Enough – When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It, Jennifer Wallace suggests that students can combat anxiety through ‘perspective-taking’ and developing an ‘other-oriented’ mindset. (Wallace, 2023) She describes achievement culture as measuring self-worth based solely on academic, financial and social success. This becomes harmful when children feel their value depends only on achievements, rather than being unconditionally valued. This pressure can lead to perfectionism, anxiety, depression and loneliness.

Finding a purpose, outside yourself, as Wallace points out, allows students to be ‘not better than others, but better for others.”(ibid)  Service, service-learning, and volunteerism provide ways for students to begin to look outward. Finding a purpose outside yourself leads to a sense of ‘mattering.’ Wallace elaborates, “It begins with ‘mattering’ to our parents and then extends outward to our community and the wider world. The more we feel valued, the more likely we are to add value and the other way around—a virtuous cycle.” (Wallace, 2023) Wallace interviewed Coach Mike who was famous for saying “you are your best when your view is wider than you.”(ibid)

In the many reflections I read written by students from Grades 6 to 12, I see that students find purpose through the service activities they engage with. The “mattering” that Wallace describes is what gives purpose to young people—it tells them they matter in their community, and that they make a positive difference in the lives of others. Purpose is the motivation and meaning driving the student; it is outward moving. Mattering is the other side of the coin. It’s what comes back to the student, letting them know they are seen, they are needed, and their work is making a difference. 

“Serving others shapes the world, and it shapes you.” (Wallace, 2023) Students find out that they matter not by being told so, but by discovering it through meeting challenges and making connections. When students encounter real-world challenges through service they form deep connections to the people they work with, they build capacity for handling setbacks and failure, and they start to tap into the intrinsic motivation that comes from dedicating time to an activity, cause, or group they care about. 

What does service-learning look like at GNS?
~ Adrienne Smook, Service Coordinator

Service begins at the youngest grade levels at our Beach Drive Campus. Throughout the IB PYP, students from JK3 to Grade 5 participate in caring for the environment and giving back to the community. Teachers lead incredible transdisciplinary service-learning projects linked to food security, literacy, and environment restoration and conservation. In Grade 6, as students enter the IB MYP programme, they are guided through planning classwide service projects and eventually choose their own Service as Action activities. As students continue through the IB MYP programme, they are asked to meet seven Service as Action Learning Outcomes. The table below shows which learning outcomes students are required to meet in each grade level.

        ~ GNS MYP Service as Action Handbook

Students can participate in long-term/ongoing service experiences or short-term activities. They are encouraged to explore a range of activities within our school and in the Greater Victoria community as well as on national and international levels. Students in Grades 11 and 12 approach their service learning through a similar set of 7 Learning Outcomes. The CAS programme (Creativity, Activity, and Service), guides students to reflect on their areas of interest and personal growth. Diploma candidates meet the 7 Learning Outcomes throughout Grades 11 and 12, while Course Candidates meet 5 Learning Outcomes through service over the course of Grades 11 and 12. Once students have initiated or completed a service activity, they are required to reflect on their learning by entering their experience in ManageBac.

Why is reflecting on service learning so important?
~ Adrienne Smook, Service Coordinator

Reflecting on service experiences in ManageBac is an important part of the service-learning process. Students are prompted to articulate precisely what they did, identify the impact they had on others, and acknowledge what they received in return. Spending time considering these points helps solidly link the action taken to their learning and helps the student to practice inhabiting an ‘other-oriented’ mindset. From that place, they become active participants in their learning, connect again to their sense of purpose, and reflect on the skills they are mastering. 

How does GNS’ value of caring fit into our service learning?
~ Carolyn Green, Principal, Senior School

Caring or kindness, and service go hand-in-hand. John-Tyler Binfet in his book Cultivating Kindness emphasised that kindness can be fostered and that teachers are the “custodians of classroom kindness.” He notes that kindness can be responsive, intentional, or quiet; that kindness is a prosocial behaviour and can be fostered when students participate in acts of service as they give to others. He urges schools to afford ample opportunities for students to commit themselves to giving to others. 

Dr. Gordon Neufeld, a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist, talks about how schools with hierarchical grades can lead to a hierarchy of power which can lead to bullying behaviours. This is when the grades do not have interaction or time to connect and socialize with each other. He advocates for the cultivation of a hierarchy of care, where the hierarchy is like a family with each level looking after the levels below. GNS develops a hierarchy of care through buddy systems, grades working together on important tasks or merely having fun together, and of course, through acts of service learning, both individual and group-based “students in the service of the GNS community.”

Next month, we will shine another spotlight on service at GNS in Part 2.