Service Learning

The Philadelphia School has a strong commitment to build and develop a deeply meaningful and integrated Service Learning program. We encourage our students to understand their roles and responsibilities within their classrooms, school, and community. Through participation in various service learning projects, our students gain the skills and confidence they need to make a difference in the world. Over the course of our their tenure at TPS we ask recurring questions: What are the needs of my my community? What are my rights and responsibilities? How can I make a positive difference?

Service projects are integrated with classroom learning and are appropriate to each age level. Awareness of opportunities to care for each other is a cornerstone of our educational goals. In the earliest grades, we model the importance of showing respect and compassion to those who are close to us. We provide for concrete, hands-on opportunities for students to care for others. Our students have classroom jobs, read to younger students, and join together regularly in cross-age family groups.

As children and adults in our community, we seek ways to help others beyond our school classroom. Our students make sandwiches for a local shelter on a weekly basis, some have an ongoing reciprocal relationship with elders from an assisted living facility, and others focus on environmental stewardship opportunities as they learn to preserve the open space and native species at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.

To be an active member of society requires an understanding of the responsibilities of citizenship and a desire to make things better. To foster this engagement with a broader community, we encourage our students to develop the skills of cooperation, dialogue, reciprocity, and reflection.