The Politics of Service Learning

Joseph Kahne writes about how service learning is used in our society to help better both the individuals taking part in the service learning projects as well as the people or community they are trying to help.  He also brings into light that while a wide spread group of people from all affiliations and background agree that service learning projects are helpful, they do sometimes disagree on how service learning should be done. The two types in a nut shell are “charity” and “change”. Charity is more about how you can give things to the less fortunate in order to help them, whether it be your time, food, or something else it’s about helping them out with something that will make their lives better. Change is more about being hands on and interacting or putting more research into something. It’s about makes a personal connection with what or who you are trying to help with in society. While both of these sides have valid points and contribute to helping everyone involved they have different outcomes on the students that are taking part in the service learning projects. The students that are working more along the lines of charity tend to get a warm and happy feeling that they did something to help out and the people or groups that they helped receive the support they needed. On the other side the students working to affect change in the community have more of a person relationship with the group or people that they are working with and have a better understanding of the individuals they are helping. In turn these students are able to both look at a group in possibly a different way than before. (A more educated way.)

An additional benefit to service learning is that students get hands on experience in areas that might interest them for later in life. These experiences could be volunteering in areas like public service such as elementary schools or even areas like hospitals where students can help do minor tasks but can see the ins and outs of the fields and possibly gain a direction for themselves before heading off to college.

Students helped raise money for local hospital in a fun way.