In the Service of What? Extended Comments

I’d like to use this week’s blogs to do extended comments. I would specifically like to use Alicia’s Blog and Nicole’s Blog..

As Nicole said, the article is about how Service Learning Projects function and how they become beneficial the volunteer and the students in American schools.

I really liked the quotes Alicia chose to pull from the article: “In the moral domain, service learning activities tend toward two types of relationships. Relationships that emphasize charity we will call “giving”.

Those that aim primarily to deepen relationships and to forge new connections we will call “caring.”

Alicia says she finds them interesting because she didn't know that there were two different kinds of service. I too, didn't know this until I read the article. I think the terms “giving” and “caring,” are very important to authors of this essay, Joseph Khane and Joel Westheimer.

Giving: to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation.

Caring: to be concerned or solicitous; have thought or regard.  

I pulled those two definitions from the dictionary to show how very different they really are. I think volunteers who actively participate in their service learning project are in the category of “giving.”The ones who simply talk about or bring attention to a community or educational problem and in this article, categorized as “caring.”

The next quote Alicia chose to comment on was also a profound one: “In the intellectual domain, a service learning curriculum can further a number of goals. The ability of a service learning curriculum can further a number of goals. The ability of a service learning curriculum to foster authentic, experience-based learning opportunities, to motivate students, to help students engage in higher- order thinking in contextually varied environments….”

I agree with her when she says that service learning would be a good way for students to become more aware of different things. It definitely will make students observe and absorb differences or similarities in an array of learning or miscellaneous environment.  No matter the environment though, the volunteer would have taken something away from it. Even if it is positive and/or negative, it will hinder their life experience and broaden their education on life and learning.

I want to close my Blog in agreement with Nicole’s final thoughts.  “I think service learning is a good opportunity to learn about one’s community.  To be able to make connections and relationships with people that you may not necessarily have come in contact otherwise.” I think this is an excellent point and it would be nice to imagine a world where the majority of people would volunteer their time to someone who is need of any kind of help while also helping themselves to become a well-rounded individual.