Talking Points 5

"In the Service of what?"
By: Kahne and Westheimer

Quotes/Comments:


1) "Service learning makes students active participants in service projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of the students."
         - I agree, I think service learning is a really great thing for students to participate in because they can not only be helping a person, or a group, or the community as a whole, but they also learn more about real life situations within their communities.  Both parties are able to learn from each other and I think that is the most important aspect of service learning.  If you do not learn something new about someone or a group of people that you did not know before, they you did not fully achieve service learning.  There are two parts: serving, and learning from it.  Both aspects are important to be met and recognized.
2) "These curriculum theorists and education reformers wanted students to engage in service learning projects so that they would recognize that their academic abilities and collective commitments could help them respond in meaningful ways to a variety of social concerns."
        -This quote expands what I was trying to get at with the previous one.  With service learning, you need to have a response to either whom or what you are serving.  In other words, you must gain something from those you served, whether it be recognition of an aspect of society you were unaware of, or just a personal lesson about life and how different it can be for others.  It is really vital in service learning that both sides gain something out of it, but not just charity.  They must also gain knowledge and life experience from their service learning project.
3) "Unfortunately, in many service activities, students view those they serve as clients rather than as a resource."
        -This quote stood out to me because it opposes what I have been saying all along.  It is very important that those performing service learning not only gain the satisfaction of charity, but also recognize that those they are serving can teach them something about life that they did not already know.  They are getting a secret look into the lives of people who may be very different from them, and instead of just helping them, they need to learn from them as well.  Service learning is a two way street, where both parties must gain from the other, in more ways than one.