“In Service of What?” Reflection Option

This weeks article is entitled, “In Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning”. Written by Joseph Kahne and Joel Wertheimer, these authors explore the topic of service learning: the different curriculums involved and the effects of those curriculums. I chose to reflect on this one, because even the article says, “Almost all discussions of service learning practices emphasize the importance of reflection”. The main concepts explored here are the differences between service learning to put emphasis on giving, civic duty, and additive experiences (charity based) vs. the emphasis on caring, social reconstruction, and transformative experience (change based).

While I was reading this article, I was reminded of Joanathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace. I have that picture of poor & poverty filled area’s like Mott Haven in my head. As an example of charity service, they also volunteers that would come and try to do what they thought was best by handing out condoms and needles to keep AIDS from spreading, but that did not stop drug use or prostitution.

During my own experiences during high school, I feel like I’ve experienced both types of service learning. The first was during my sophomore year, as my class did a book study on Kisses from Katie. The book was about a girl named Katie who had gone on a trip to Uganda in high school,but then right afterwards moved to Uganda by herself. She was so moved to do what she could to change what she saw in Uganda, and was also distraught about our own American culture. While the book wasn’t about our own community in Rhode Island, we spent many weeks reflecting on the ideals behind the book and journaled our thoughts/ways we could make a difference here at home. At the end of the school year, we all actually made shoes through an organization that was similar to the one Katie started in Uganda! It really changed my perspective on poverty not only there, but in my own backyard. This was more of a combination between charity service learning as well as change service learning.

My senior year of high school, I took a leadership class which required a certain amount of volunteer hours to be completed. We actually could take class time to volunteer–the first half of the year was spent learning about serving, and the second half was actually spent serving. Some trips we took altogether, and other trips we had to arrange on our own. We learned a lot about charity giving, but not that much about the social injustices behind what we were giving to. Yet, being able to volunteer at a variety of non-profits opened my eyes to a variety of problems/solutions which I can speak about at service level. This was less about the change, but more about the charity aspect of service learning.

I really enjoyed reading the article and learning about the different perspectives associated with service learning. I wonder what is the reasoning behind some teachers assigning volunteer work and an attached essay vs. others who dive into the why’s behind it all. Is there any type of power/privilege involved? Then I ask the question, “Which type of service learning is more beneficial?” I think that both of the perspectives listed in the article can be extreme: one is helping  on the surface without digging into the root of the problem, while one is digging but not having enough energy after that to fix what can be on the surface. Is there a happy medium between the two? What would you say is the best way to approach service learning?

Attachedis a video showing you a little of what I learned about Kisses from Katie:

.