Parents and teachers agree that social and emotional learning (SEL) and service-learning have a reciprocal, mutually reinforcing relationship. Service-learning offers students real-world experiences that connect classroom learning to life, broaden perspectives, deepen social awareness, and connect actions to the needs of communities.

However, only one in 10 teachers believe their schools are very successful at developing students’ ability to apply knowledge to real-world situations and their SEL skills. In order to address this, we need to strengthen service-learning and SEL opportunities together.

The new report Ready to Engage, from Civic and Hart Research Associates, argues for expanding student opportunities like service-learning, promoting SEL and service-learning training for staff, as well as embedding it into state standards and workforce prep models.

Now more than every, our world requires a generation of leaders with the knowledge, skills, resilience, and civic dispositions to innovate and engage. We need to advocate for more service-learning opportunities so that all young people can meet the challenges of tomorrow.

We invite you to join us and the other members of the Coalition for Service-Learning as we strive to bring service-learning opportunities to Kindergarten through higher education students across the nation.