“You Gotta Serve Somebody”

The title of this post is also the title of a song by Bob Dylan. It is also my favorite entrée to the topic of community service. One of the hats I wear at ESK—beyond Chaplain, Religion Teacher, and Coach—is “Director of Service Learning.” Our program aims to fulfill ESK’s mission to help students “realize their potential as children of God and citizens of the world.”

I am proud to have this role because I think it can lead to profound learning and discovery for our students. Not only can students make a positive impact on their communities, but they stand to gain spiritual wisdom from this process as well: To confront injustice is to confront the reality of our own flaws and to experience God’s acceptance of us just the way we are.

I occasionally attend conference workshops and roundtable discussions on how to enhance Service Learning, and I have come to grips with some of our unique strengths and challenges at ESK. I have participated in enough conversations to have developed a sense that Service Learning needs to be adopted and engaged holistically by the entire school community.   That is the approach of author Jeanine Harmon in this recent article published by Edutopia.com. She asks some questions we have begun discussing at ESK.

One of my initiatives as Director of Service Learning is to raise the collective awareness of Service Learning across the constituencies of our campus community. I hope to have students, parents, teachers, administrators, and board members more educated and excited about the ways serving others can help unlock real learning about ourselves, our communities, and our world. Toward that end, this year the Academic Council created a sub-committee called “Service, Justice, and Diversity,” and I am chair.   Other faculty members of the committee are Mary Lovely, Cam Basden, Stephanie McIntosh, and Jeannie Hoover.

It is this group’s collective task to help raise the profile of Service Learning across the curriculum at ESK and to study and, where appropriate, to make recommendations to the Academic Council about ways our school community can maintain and enhance its institutional focus on social justice and diversity as guiding principles. In the Spring, the committee will collaborate and publish an edition of Scribe, our school’s bi-annual magazine, which features Service Learning as an essential component of the educational experience offered by ESK.

This is just one more step in the right direction. In October, the committee hosted a faculty talk by Dr. Billy O’Steen from Canterbury University in Christ Church, New Zealand, their Director of Service Learning and previously the same for Tulane University. Last Spring, we introduced and presented the first annual Secor Servant Leadership awards to those students who, by year’s end, had demonstrated the most extraordinary commitments to service. We also introduced the service distinction track as an optional enhanced service learning goal for Middle School students who wish to serve more than the number of required hours.

There are so many things we can do to enhance this discussion at ESK, and one of them might be to harness the brainstorming power of our parents and extended community. I wonder what the Harmon article excites in you. Perhaps you will share it with me.

Today’ post come from’s ESK Chaplain Josh Hill. He can be reached by email at hill@esknoxville.org.