Teaching Symposium Focuses on Learning Service

Fifty educators from area private and public schools visited Westminster Sept. 26 to join Westminster faculty members as participants in a symposium titled “Learning Service: The Theory and Practice of Community Engagement.”
 

It was the fourth annual symposium put on by the Westminster Teaching Initiative (WTI), which aims to make good teachers even better through the sharing of ideas. In addition to holding weekly meetings for Westminster faculty, WTI hosts a symposium each year that enlarges the circle of sharing with educators in the region.
 

“Although the commonly used title to describe the focus of the symposium is really “service learning,” in WTI we read an article that proposed flipping that title around in order to emphasize that learning should be an integral part of any service endeavor,” said Nancy Urner-Berry’81, P’11’, ’16, co-director of WTI. “One needs to investigate the culture and climate of the individuals and communities they are hoping to serve and then have time to reflect on the activity afterward.”
 

Headmaster Bill Philip welcomed everyone to the symposium and described some of Westminster’s learning service initiatives including a Civic Engagement course for Fourth Formers, an annual Community Service Day, the Community Service Program and the Westminster Crosssroads Learning Program in Hartford (WCLP). “This is an opportunity for us to learn from each other,” he said about the symposium. “All of us want students to go out into the world and make a difference.”
 

The keynote speaker was Jon Isham, director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Middlebury College, who spoke about how the center promotes social engagement through social entrepreneurship. He said the two most important goals in the initiative are to help students to look outside of themselves and to look inward through reflection. “This is what education is supposed to be about,” he said. “It is a lifelong conversation.”
 

He talked about the concept of social entrepreneurship, saying, “Social entrepreneurship doesn’t solve problems but helps us get to a greater equilibrium.” He added, “The model promotes that in each of us is the opportunity to change the things around us; everyone is a change maker.” He also gave an example of major change resulting from a class he taught related to climate change that led to a major conference and the grassroots organization 350.org. “As a teacher, I threw a rock into a pond and something happened.” He encouraged the teachers in the audience to think about how social entrepreneurship connects with what they do with their students.
 

Following his address and before sessions with other presenters, Mark de Kanter ’91, co-director of WTI, told the participants, “This symposium is all about getting us together. It is an opportunity to stop, take a breath and think about what we are doing.”
 

Participants then had an opportunity to attend presentations given by Jon; Todd Eckerson, director of the Westminster Crossroads Learning Program in Hartford; Al Freihofer, director of the Norton Family Center for the Common Good at Loomis Chaffee School; Amy Sun Neilson, chair of the InterMission term at Miss Porter’s School, and Susan Reeder Moss, ninth grade InterMission dean also at Miss Porter’s School; Sheri Schmidt, director of Equity and Social Justice at The Ethel Walker School; and Michael Van Leesten, director of Breakthrough New Haven at Hopkins School.