Reflections on "In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning"



Reading the article made me remember that I had to do a sort of service learning project at my high school 11 years ago.  I forget exactly what the rhetoric they used to explain the purpose and what I was to get out of it.  I just remember not being able to pick something I cared about and so my aunt picked the topic of homelessness and I volunteered at a shelter and a place that provided homeless people items to use and I think I might've even interviewed a homeless person as well.  I don't remember it well because my Aunt did pretty much everything.  I don't blame her because she was concerned that this was a requirement and I wouldn't graduate.

Perhaps, like the article suggests, if part of the requirement was looking at the reasons for something like homelessness exists then perhaps I could of come up with doing the topic myself and motivated enough to do it myself as well.  I do much better with looking at reasons for things then drawing passion from thin air to make a decision.  I was just a specific kid with pretty specific problems not; I am sure not everyone had the problem of not even being able to pick a subject and act on it.

I think a service learning assignment is a good thing.  Growing kids need life experience but I do think it unwise to have a service learning with the expectation of an ideal outcome.  Hell, even something as simple as "life experience" wasn't really achieved that much with me.  Though I do remember the experience and the difficulties I had with it.  So thinking about it and reflection on my experiences gives me the perspective that there will always be students that do not get what you intend from the activity.

If that is the case then perhaps we shouldn't focus so much on the question of "in service of what?".  As long as 1. It helps someone in some kind of need and 2. Requires the student to be out in the real world then it will at the very least do those two things for the student.  Anything less than that would not do those things.  It's tough for me because this was not a very good experience for me when I did it in high school but I am doing it again now because of this class and at the very least I can appreciate the experience more.

Question to class did you have to do a service learning project and was it easy for you to pick something?

 

   

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