Community Learning Curriculum

The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Community Learning Curriculum

Community Learning Philosophy

The Community Learning Program is an educational program that is designed to offer U-High students a chance to learn by serving others in the community. It provides students with the opportunity to extend their education beyond the classroom and into the working community so that they may positively shape the society in which they live.

The goals of the program are rooted in the educational philosophy of John Dewey who believed that community participation, when combined with reflection, supplies a rich tapestry of social and intellectual experiences that can give meaning and purpose to classroom learning. These ideas are supported by current educational research that shows that community understanding and emotional and intellectual growth are direct results of the connection made between cooperative social interaction and academic reflection.

The Community Learning curriculum combines the theoretical, experiential and personal aspects of learning and rests on the belief that youth are capable of creating knowledge and meaning from their experiences. While using the community as an arena for reflection and action, students are challenged with learning hands-on about relationships between individuals and their communities.

By helping students make connections between learning and living, growing and caring, this type of experience-based program encourages them to question, analyze, interpret, and most importantly, act on the social conditions that pervade their lives. Coupled with the knowledge that they make a difference in the lives of others, any academic material will seem more important, for it has a powerful connection to life and to the things that make life meaningful.

Service Learning
The Service Learning Program provides an opportunity for students to share their talents and time with community members with whom they would not typically interact in exchange for a greater awareness of life experiences different from their own.

Students are expected to build relationships with a community member or members over a period of time. They are required to visit their site at least once a week over the period of two quarters.

Students may select their service sites from a handbook that lists organizations with an established relationship with Lab. It includes Ariel Extended Day, Blackstone Library, Chicago Youth Programs, Casa Aztlan, Chinese American Service League, Hyde Park Day School, Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, Inspiration Café, LaRabida Children's Hospital, LaSalle Street Tutoring Program, Living Room Café, Montgomery Place, Ray School, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, St. Martin de Porres, Strive Tutoring, University of Chicago Children's Hospital, and Vital Bridges.

Community Learning Seminar
Once a week, a forty-five minute advisory meeting is devoted to the Community Learning Seminar. The purpose of seminar is to form a supportive classroom community in which social issues are discussed, as well as how these issues relate to the students' individual sites. The three-quarter curriculum is divided into three sections: Perceptions, Prejudices, and Stereotypes; Hunger, Poverty, and Homelessness; Apathy vs. Involvement. The seminar is led by Peer Leaders in conjunction with a sophomore advisor.

Peer Leaders
Peer Leaders are high school juniors and seniors who have completed their community-learning requirement and have been through leadership training. Peer Leaders are motivated to lead by an interest in experiential learning and a desire to promote community awareness and involvement among their peers.

Peer Leaders' responsibilities include: demonstrating good leadership, facilitation and communication skills, working in groups, planning curriculum with other Peer Leaders and sophomore advisor, co-facilitating the weekly seminar, detecting problems in seminar, acting as a liaison between the sophomores and the program coordinator, attending regularly scheduled Peer Leader meetings, and joining a program committee.