recreation, meaningful associations, and off-campus experience for residents—some of whom would eventually be placed outside the institution—the program permitted students to take on significant leadership roles. Program outcomes demonstrated benefits for all its participants—Partlow residents and students alike. However, the process of program initiation and management also began to reshape my understanding of the competencies and aspirations of young people.
The students’ fundamental role in creating and advocating for the program denoted their interest in more than simply being volunteers, that is, filling existing slots. Working together, students had imagined a new plan for serving residents of Partlow and had articulated a rationale for its implementation. They made the case for a program that had systemic implications and that placed core responsibility squarely on themselves. Their planning process and negotiations with Partlow staff members were models of civic deliberation; their long-term commitment of time, money, and thought was evidence that they intended to make a difference in the community. And the program’s success testified to their competence and dependability. The process defined students as citizens and community members and made clear that fulfilling the attendant responsibilities would have important consequences for their personal development and for the well-being of the place where they lived.
For more that a decade, I was privileged to help support the enterprises of University of Alabama students carried out at the Wesley Foundation. Weekly and summer-long tutorial projects, service to elders in residential facilities, tuition scholarship programs for youngsters from rural Alabama and Africa, and a big-brother volunteer initiative followed the Partlow project and reflected many of its essential features. Out of these programs, the two that most influenced my understanding of the citizenship and community membership of students were the Wesley Shelter Care Home and the Student Coalition for Community Health (SCCH).
Wesley Shelter Care Home
In the early 1970s the Juvenile Court of Tuscaloosa County requested that students at the Wesley Foundation join with it to establish and operate a residential program that would serve as an alternative to detention for adjudicated boys and girls. There were no models to follow and no operators of similar programs with whom to consult, and there were few financial resources at the court’s disposal. Undaunted, Wesley Foundation students agreed to undertake the project.
Why did students attempt such a formidable task? They were not naïve about the difficulties to be faced. Their experience working with troubled youth had given them considerable insight. They knew that the situation would be volatile and unpredictable and that mistakes were inevitable. The proposed program would demand much of their time and would place them in situations requiring constant attention and accountability. Students often explained that they accepted the challenge primarily because they were asked to do so. The request, actually a challenge, honored their ability and concern; it counted upon them to continue to make a difference in the life of the community. The stereotypes of university students were not applied to the Wesley group. The offer of partnership denoted respect that was compelling.
Another reason that students accepted the challenge was that, as big brothers and sisters, they already knew and were concerned about boys and girls under court jurisdiction. Social problems and the persons debilitated by them were not abstractions for these young people; they had seen them and had come to believe that they could help. The students had already worked with officers of the court and had collaborated with their peers to address community needs. They not only had served as volunteers, they had created a program through which others could help kids who needed a big brother or sister. Their history of effective public work also gave them confidence needed to make a positive response to the court’s request.
Finally, students agreed to see the project through because they are persons of character, whose belief systems and civic understandings engendered commitment and determination. There are two primary emphases in Consequential Learning that are rooted in this final explanation of why students would agree to assume such responsibilities. First, Consequential Learning affirms that kids have character, that they are capable of making informed commitments, and they should be called upon to do so. Rather than being blank tablets waiting to have virtues inscribed on them, they are individuals ready to be tested and to demonstrate their convictions. There is no suggestion here that character development ever ceases or that any person, young or old, ever has it all figured out. The point is to realize that young people are neither moral voids nor moral deficits and that their characters are strengthened by action. Second, in the Shelter Care work, their commitments, and the actions emanating from them, were strengthened through association with adults involved in the project as professionals or as volunteers. It was highly beneficial for students to know and be known by adults and to receive their affirmation and guidance. The approaches and projects of Consequential Learning value the creation of meaningful settings through which young people and adults can learn from and about each other.
Working with representatives of the court, especially its chief officer, John Upchurch, students energetically began the process of acquiring and renovating physical facilities; working out the logistics of supervision, feeding, and transportation; meeting the codes of various governmental agencies; and fashioning an operational program. Because the Shelter Care work offered valuable career-related experience, Wesley students were soon joined by their peers in social work, psychology, and other fields related to the program. As with the Partlow project and the efforts described below, students demonstrated their capacity to identify and to create contexts of consequence for their learning.
Churches, civic organizations, and individuals in the community contributed time, expertise, money, furnishings, and building materials needed to implement the Shelter Care project. Local people offered a great deal of assistance when they saw the students’ commitment and public work. It became clear that adults are ready to help and encourage young people when the settings for action are available. I came to believe, as a correlative, that support for public schools declines when citizens cannot see what is going on or understand how they can be of benefit to the institutions and to the kids.
Younger students in the community contributed as well—on their own, junior high school kids held fund-raisers for the homes. Their gifts of money and affirmation were significant motivators for the Shelter Care organizers and were indicators of the community interest of young people whose work presaged similar contributions made by rural youngsters through the programs of the PACERS Cooperative and other school-based ventures described below.
It never occurred to me that the students would fail to fulfill the responsibilities of their partnership with the court. They had been asked to undertake the project because of their track record in working with adjudicated youth and in creating and sustaining other community projects. Students were instrumental in purchasing and remodeling facilities and in preparing an operation manual, as well as staffing and running the program. They did all this in close association with officers of the court and a full-time supervisor. Serving hundreds of adjudicated youth who would otherwise have been held in detention, the program operated for four years; because it proved its value as an alternative to detention, it was subsequently adopted and operated by local government. The students had met the expectations of the juvenile court and their work had demonstrated their civic ability and their community membership.
Student Coalition for Community Health
Experience with the Shelter Care program and other initiatives gave Wesley students the skills and confidence necessary to organize in the mid-1970s the Student Coalition for Community Health (SCCH), an organization that for twenty-five years formed effective partnerships with rural Alabamians to improve community and individual health and to enhance educational and personal growth. The experiences and reflections of SCCH participants expanded my understanding of students’ citizenship and community membership and have been especially important in the development of Consequential Learning approaches.
Modeled on the Student Health Coalition operating out of the Center for Health Services at Vanderbilt University,
