Lecture on “Education and Community Service” at American Club

Mr. Johnston discusses education

Mr. Paul Johnston, Director of Asmara’s International Community School, was the featured speaker at the monthly American Club lecture at the Eritro-German Conference hall on November 29, 2007. Speaking on the subject of “Education and Community Service,” Mr. Johnston provided the audience an excellent overview of U.S. perspectives on the value of community service to student academic learning and to promoting civic awareness of young people in society. (more)

Lecture on “Education and Community Service” at American club

Mr. Paul Johnston, Director of Asmara’s International Community School, was the featured speaker at the monthly American Club lecture at the Eritro-German Conference hall on November 29, 2007.

DCM McIntyre moderates the discussion

Speaking on the subject of “Education and Community Service,” Mr. Johnston provided the audience an excellent overview of U.S. perspectives on the value of community service to student academic learning and to promoting civic awareness of young people in society.  Mr. Johnston noted that 1/3 of all public schools in America have introduced this concept of “service learning” into their curriculums.  Providing an example of a “service learning” experience, Mr. Johnston noted that students volunteering to pick up trash along a river is community service.  Students studying river water samples in a laboratory are academic learning. However, if the students’ academic work is then used by a Government or civil society group to assess the level of pollution in the river and its causes, then the students have merged their studies with real life experience. Such “service learning” experiences promote the students’ intellectual development by generating independent thought, since students can assess their own experiences against information learned through academic studies, and ultimately reach their own conclusions.

In the question and answer session, audience members noted that volunteer ecological work by students in Eritrea, such as planting trees or assisting with the harvest, provides similar “service learning” experiences.