Civic Reflection Pilot with Chicago Public Schools

In Fall 2007, the Service-Learning Initiative in the Office of High School Programs for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will join with the Project on Civic Reflection and the Great Books Foundation to pilot civic reflection discussions in the service-learning programs of five CPS high schools. The ideal CPS "recipe" for service-learning is one part preparation, one part action, and one part reflection. As Jon Schmidt, Service-Learning manager for CPS, explains, teachers stand in real need of meaningful and flexible resources to help with the reflection component of their highly varied programs. Civic reflection, a small group activity that helps participants explore the meaning of service through discussion of a short reading, has already proven successful with post-high school service volunteers, and could prove very useful to CPS teachers as a resource for enabling student reflection.

The pilot will involve five CPS high schools, reaching approximately 25 teachers and up to 500 CPS students. The schools will be provided with the booklet "Talking Service: Readings for Civic Reflection," published by the Great Books Foundation, containing six readings on service, along with reflection exercises and questions for discussion. The readings, by authors ranging from Gwendolyn Brooks to Pablo Neruda, are short enough to be read out-loud by a group (thus meeting a range of reading abilities) but complex enough to provoke real thought and conversation. Participating teachers will attend a half-day civic reflection training, provided by Project on Civic Reflection staff, to help them learn how to lead discussions of these readings. They will also be brought together in their own schools mid-year for support, and at year's end for debriefing. In addition, the Project on Civic Reflection will support the teachers with web-based and other resources. For more information on this pilot, please contact us. For information about the publication "Talking Service," please contact Jason Smith at the Great Books Foundation.