Often at a meeting I am asked if I know of a young person who would be willing to help out on a community project whose aim is to serve others. The idea is simple enough and most young persons I know as friends of the family, church or 4-H club members would be willing to help, given their skill level and willingness to learn. Some school systems in this country and some even here in central Ohio would give a student credit for this kind of “service-learning.”

        Service to others, to the community and to the nation, is an old idea. The concept of “paying forward” was the way late coach Woody Hayes would describe the responsibility of serving your community. Senator Edward Kennedy claims it to be “the spirit of the first national frontier” as well as the New Frontier of President Kennedy’s. Actually the history of community service is older than the nation itself, with the roots of service found in the early history of native people as well as in the pioneer’s ethic to help thy neighbor. 

        Throughout our nation’s history service to others has been a theme.  Service-learning as a term is relatively new, traced by experiential educators to the early 1970's. The concept of service in public school curriculum was promoted by earlier scholars, most notably John Dewey in the 1930's. 

        Service-learning as a school requirement is a complex undertaking that requires attention and fine tuning according to Drs. Halsted & Schine. Here are two definitions of service-learning: 1) “pairing of meaningful volunteer work with opportunities to reflect critically on the experience through regular group discussions,” and 2) “involves students in real-life settings where they apply academic knowledge and previous experience to meet real community needs.”

        It matters little to me the exact definition we would choose to accept to implement a service-learning program in our community’s schools. I do believe that exploring the feasibility and expectation that students “pay forward” before their high school graduation is a model that should not be dismissed as we strive to instill the values of service to others in our community.

        Aristotle concluded over 2300 years ago that more than anything else people seek happiness. So what defines happiness and what contributes to it?  A leading scholar on “optimal experiences” has discovered that happiness is not dependent on money or fame or power. It is also not the result of random chance. Happiness doesn’t depend on outside events, but rather on how we interpret them. Happiness comes as a reward of being totally involved in living.

        Optimal experience, according to Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, is when we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment, that comes when our bodies and minds are “stretched to (their) limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

        As an interpreter, creating optimal experiences is the goal for advanced learning. Effective settings for an optimal experience are characterized by their absence of anything that might induce anxiety or stress. An attractive element of parks, historic sites, scenic byways and other interpretive areas is that these are informal places generally free of stress, and of an inspirational quality, according to Beck and Cable in their book “Interpretation for the 21st Century.” 

        Interpretive professionals are in the business of creating and managing opportunities for enjoyment. They do not produce that enjoyment, however. Only the visitor, or person engaged in the interpretive opportunity can do that. Good interpretive sites are conducive to the attainment of an optimal experience. 

        People come to places of cultural and natural significance during their leisure time, although not all people are seeking an optimal experience. Some people will achieve their optimal experience when they reach their destination. Others seeking a pleasurable and relaxing endeavor may have an optimal experience due to the rest that they enjoy as the foundation for growth that follows.  Given the true Greek definition of leisure time, it is not only a time that offers relaxation; on the contrary, it requires effort to expand the range of one’s physical, mental, or spiritual capacities.  Expanding these capacities in some way is the result of an optimal experience.

        So, ‘carpe diem,’ meaning seize the day! Plan to live by experiencing something new right here in Holmes County during the coming months.  The fabulous local museums offer historic and cultural interpretive exhibits that can bring you to a new level of understanding and appreciation.  Over the next few years, partnerships in the community will be concentrating on how we can interpret our story in an even better, more dramatic way, making connections to the heritage we represent each day.