Monday, October 19, 2009

The Politics of Service Learning

In Service of What?
The Politics of Service Learning

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 students.”

- This quote describes the reason for service learning. It’s defiantly true because while service learning does help the community it also benefits the students. It makes me refer to VIPS because I defiantly think that I’m helping out lower academic students but it’s also giving me the opportunity to feel what it is like to work in the classroom. There is never a day where I don’t want to go, I learn so much from doing it. It even makes the class more interesting rather than just reading out of a text book which helps students to interact and participate more.
2.)”Everyone at the school had good manners, and I think more highly of [the neighborhood] now.” The experimental and interpersonal components of service learning activities can achieve the first crucial step toward diminishing the sense of “otherness” that often separates students-particularly privileged students-from those in need.”

-This is a quote from an upper class middle school student, who was given negative perceptions about the neighborhood where he would be volunteering. I felt like I related to this because I was worried about the neighborhood of my service learning project only because people told me how bad it was. I also wondered how it would affect the students in their school, but I actually had the same outcome. All the children in the classroom off my service learning acted the same as when I was in elementary school. Just because someone comes from a lower income home or neighborhood doesn’t mean they can’t be a good person.

3.)”While an additional emphasis on charity might lead to service learning activities that raise self-esteem, impel students into new experiences, and demonstrate the value of scholastic abilities in real-world contexts.”
-I believe that this is saying that service learning brings new ideas to students. It helps them to be more open minded. Also, I believe that all students benefit from this because they are learning from real life experiences rather than from a text book. This tends to be a more effective way of learning and is more hands on. I believe that what this quote means by “raise self-esteem” is that by volunteering in a place where we see the less fortunate, we tend to become more grateful for what we have no matter how much or little that may be. I believe that there is always someone out there who has it much worse than or is less fortunate than me and it’s a shame that sometimes I need real life experiences like this to remind me of this.

Overall I did like this article but it wasn’t my favorite. I believe that it had some good points but I feel like it was repetitive. This article made me realize how service learning can benefit me and the community. I also realized how it can make classes to be more hands on. I found it very interesting when the kids from the upper class middle school branched out to the community to find that it was not what they had anticipated.

3 comments:

  1. I agree with the article being quite repetitive but I believe they were just trying to get the point across that service learning benefits both sides of the fence... For both students it becomes a learning experience. VIPS is pretty awesome, isn't it?!

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  2. Glad that you got a lot out of this even though it wasn't your favorite one to read.

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  3. I like your first quote and explanation. VIPS is awesome and I learn something from it every time I go as well

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