“Serving to Learn, and Learning to Serve”
Very briefly, service-learning means having students link community service (usually to a non-profit agency or a school) with academic course materials. Ten to fifteen hours of service is usual; and the essential linking can take place in a number of ways, written, oral, or other (see below).
Reflecting on the connections between their service project and their other class assignments gives students an excellent opportunity to experience an important aspect of liberal arts education: the creative application of “book-learning” to life and to leadership. Service-learning is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about the complex society, and complex culture, in which they will be working, raising families, and serving as leaders. Not only will students be helping others--which is in itself a good thing; but they also will be realizing a core value of their UNCA education: the ability to make connections and to use the mind creatively.
How can performing service increase students’ understanding of what they’re learning in class? We’ve found that their experience on-site affects how students interpret texts and how they judge their interpretations. It’s fascinating and gratifying to watch one’s students grow, as their service-projects help them to become more conscious of their own--and others’--world-views and biases. The service gives them questions to ask the texts; the texts challenge them to see the fuller reality of the people at their service-site: their learning, and their world, thus become more real to them.
For example, working in a retirement home helped some of my freshmen in “Humanities: The Ancient World” better understand Gilgamesh’s wrestling with his deep fear of death, in that ancient Mesopotamian epic; in that same class, another student, working at Asheville’s Nature Center, came to better understand the biblical roots of contemporary folks’ loathing of snakes. I anticipate that, this semester, students studying introductory linguistics with me will gain greater understanding of the essentials and the intricacies of English by, for example, tutoring Hispanic children, helping in day-care centers, listening to senior citizens’ stories, or even simply by paying attention to jargon or dialects at various sites.
To paraphrase developmental theorists, we are more likely to act ourselves into new ways of thinking than think ourselves into new ways of acting. The act of serving helps make beliefs, choices, and academic learning more complex, deeper, and more mature. It helps students avoid the dangers of a shallow and easy relativism, of a selfish and closed-minded individualism: the cop-out, “Well, everyone’s just different!” becomes a non-option.
Getting Started: Anticipating the Connections, and Finding the Sites
Some students already have ideas about where they would like to do their service-learning experience; some faculty members direct students to particular sites. For those who need some help in placements, the Key Center has many resources.
Students may visit the Key Center in Highsmith Union to consult one of our interns and use our extensive data base of sites and types of community involvement. If you prefer to have a representative of the Key Center visit your class to talk with your students, either Merritt Moseley, Key Center Professor, or one of our interns will be happy to do so.
What Kind of Service? And--How Much Is “Enough”?
Service at a non-profit organization or school is best, and easiest to arrange. The number of hours required is up to you, of course. But we’ve found that a service-learning assignment of 10-15 hours usually works best. It is best, too, for the students to string out those hours over several days--preferably weeks--in order to allow them time to reflect and to make intelligent and meaningful connections between service and course-work. (At the end of their service, you might want to require each student to give you a brief letter from his or her supervisor; this not only assures you that the service was performed, but also makes a fine souvenir for the student!)
How Can Students Best Put Together the “S” and the “L”?
Reflection is absolutely necessary. How can students best reflect upon their service-learning? That depends upon your class, your goals, your students. Possibilities include notebooks/journals--collected frequently, perhaps graded in mid-semester, and at the semester’s end; roundtable in-class discussions--once, or as often as you’d like, with or without pizza and sodas; individual presentations--which can help students polish their SACS-required oral skills; test/exam questions; extra-credit questions; mini-essays; longer, formal papers; research papers that include some library research directly related to course materials and their service-project. It’s very interesting to have students, through service, test theories they’re exposed to in classes: Gloria Steinem’s theories about why women work, for example; or a textbook’s theories about racial prejudice; or Enlightenment theories about our inherent rationality; or philosophical theories concerning innate human tendencies toward The Good/Evil. Through service-learning, students up with fascinating insights!
Various kinds of reflection can be required, or optional--and, of course, mixed in a number of ways. I’ve found that the more links between class and service, the better: my students write weekly notebook reflections, sharing these with a partner as well as with me; they also write a formal paper (upper-level courses--library research included). At the end of the semester, we talk, as a class (with pizza and soda), about the ways in which each person’s project connects to the course materials. And my final exams include either a brief essay on the course-service connections, or an extra-credit question on this topic. |
