In The Service Of What? Reflection Blog

This week’s article “In The Service Of What? The Politics of Service Learning” by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer talks about the different underlying components of service learning projects and what they have to offer everyone involved. It is the perfect piece, I feel, for a reflection blog. I could not stop thinking about my volunteer hours while reading and connecting what the article said to things I have done and experienced.

The first thing that caught my eye in the article was the phrase “…service learning activities seek to promote students’ self-esteem…” (pg. 2). I immediately connected with this, especially because of my volunteer hours I completed a few days ago. When I was working with one of the students, she was getting every math problem correct and had improved on her list of site words. She was smiling so hard I knew her face had to hurt! I could tell that her confidence had increased since the first time I started working with her. I felt a great sense of pride knowing that my assistance can help this little first grader feel better about herself. Very rewarding!

                                            

I like how Mr. Johnson from one of the service learning cases explained that his students would be able to use the community as a classroom (pg. 3). I never thought of it like that, but he was absolutely right. Anyone who engages in any sort of volunteer work, whether the academic component is obvious or not, is always learning something new and valuable. For our volunteer hours through Inspiring Minds, we are in literal classrooms where learning is constantly (hopefully) taking place. But in the case of the boy serving meals to the seniors at a center, while he is not in a traditional learning environment, he is learning how these people interact and live on a daily basis. It is important to realize that no matter where you are or what you are doing, there is always a learning experience waiting to be taken advantage of.

It is said in the article that the emphasis of service learning is charity and not change (pg. 4), but I feel that the two are inevitably connected. Charity is described as giving, and change as caring…but if you give to those in need, isn’t that caring? I think the authors could have elaborated differently on how the two differ and how they affect the people involved. I just found it funny that they didn’t connect the two as strongly as they really should be.

“When I care, Noddings explains, a relationship develops in which ‘the other’s reality becomes a real possibility for me’.”

I also realized that it is very important to view our students as resources and not clients (pg. 7). When working with the less fortunate we have to treat them as equals, and as though they have something valuable to offer us as well, because in most cases if not all, they do.

Towards the end of the article I became confused. When they were talking about the three domains of service learning I found it to be a bit redundant. I’m not sure if I was interpreting these sections incorrectly or if anyone else was in the same position as me…hopefully we’ll discuss in class :)