Thursday, March 10, 2011

Two styles of service learning projects

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The authors of “In the Service of What?” describe two different types of service learning experiences.  Besides this project that we are working on now in the Providence schools I have been involved in a couple of other service learning projects during my days in public schools.  The first was when I was in fifth grade.  I think “service learning” must have been a real buzz word then because everyone was so excited about what we were doing, and talking about how great it was.  The project was actually pretty fun.  The school sought out veterans of WWII, and they ended up getting a pretty big response; I think there were about forty people who had actually been in combat or were doing something for the war effort on the home front.  In small groups of about three or four, we interviewed our veteran three or four times over the course of about six weeks.  Then each group wrote about their veteran’s life and all the writings were published in a pretty nice book.  I remember the man I interviewed.  His name was William Anthony, and he had also served in the Korean War where he had lost his hand when his plane was shot down.  He had some pretty great stories, and was just a really resourceful guy, especially considering his disability.  (For example, I remember that he had a “scoop” attachment as a prosthetic because it made playing tennis easier.)   
In addition to interviewing veterans, the whole grade studied WWII in Social Studies, drew pictures to illustrate our book in art, and worked on writing the reflections in Language Arts.  Obviously our “service learning” project didn’t really solve a problem the way that Kahne and Westhemier suggested a good project should, but since we did get to interact with individuals quite a lot, I think we went beyond just learning about a “spirit of altruism.”
I found this excellent service learning project video on Youtube.  These college students tutored prison inmates to help them pass their GED.  But the reflections they did on the last day of class indicate that this was more than charity, critical analysis was definitely involved.  For example, one girl notes,  “It’s kind of sad…What does that say about our society, that, like, prison, is some people’s only opportunity to get the education that they should have gotten in high school?”  Another young woman discusses the issue of black to white incarceration rates, and a young man describes how important he found the assigned reflections actually were.    

This is a link to the Maryland public schools website.  http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/servicelearning/project_ideas.htm . As the article mentioned, Maryland is one of the states that requires some community service in order to graduate.  However, this service is basically about forced volunteer work.  The projects that are suggested on this website are just about being charitable, not about reflecting and creating meaningful social change.  For example, in regards to projects about the environment the site suggests that these projects “are all about affecting the environment in a positive way. Many of these projects will include the restoration of indigenous species, the clean up of local landmarks, and promoting more environmentally friendly practices in the school and local community.  These appear to be project were students put in the required number of hours and then be done with the project.  This is not what service learning is all about according to the authors of “In the Service of What?”  Rather, service learning is about making meaninful connections and show students how they can make meaningful social changed

3 comments:

  1. Love the video... perfect example of what Kahne and Westheimer are talking about!

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  2. I agree with Dr. Bogad. I really liked the video. Also, I think that the interviewing of veterans that you had to do is great!

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  3. i really liked the video!!! and i thought it was a really cool idea to interview the veterans. i wish we had done something like that. seems like it would have been a reallly neat experience

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