"Why Service Learning is Bad" by John Eby
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Why Service Learning is Bad ......1
Why Service-Learning Is Bad
John W. Eby March 1998
Abstract
Service-learning has potential to transform teaching and learning in the academy and to call a generation of students to develop social responsibility and an ethic of service. Research on the learning side of the service-learning equation shows that students develop social responsibility, reduce racism, develop leadership and gain personal and social skills. There are however important questions which must be examined on the service side of the equation. The demands a learning orientation places on service limits its effectiveness and its ability to address community needs at a structural level. The service students do is often ameliorative and the explanations of social issues gained through service-learning are often individualistic. Through participation in service- learning, students may develop truncated understandings of the nature of social problems and of strategies for fundamental social change. This paper examines potential negative aspects of service-learning and identifies an agenda for strengthening the service provided through service-learning.
The service-learning movement is burgeoning. It is estimated that more than 50 percent of colleges and universities in the United States have some kind of service-learning program with more added every semester. The number of high schools, middle schools and even grade schools with service-learning is increasing. Conferences on service-learning are well attended. Both the quality and the quantity of research is increasing. Service-learning is widely praised by educators, faculty, administrators, students, parents, politicians, and community service agencies as a great hope for restoring relevance for the academy, as a strategy for creating a generation of students with an ethic of service, and as the answer to community social problems. Different representatives of the same groups also question service-learning because they claim that it does not address real community problems, because it is not real learning and because it teaches students inadequate understandings of service and social issues.
The service-learning movement is fueled by an uneasy sense that the academy is becoming increasingly irrelevant to real issues of society and by the increasing popularity of volunteerism in society. The President’s summit focused national attention on volunteerism. There are so many follow up mini-summits that national figures must pick and choose which ones to attend and video recordings are used to provide a token presence. Some businesses are freeing employees to do volunteer work on company time. Community volunteer centers are adding staff. It is not unrealistic to talk of an emerging service movement and not too optimistic to expect a dramatic increase in the numbers of persons doing volunteer service and in the numbers of agencies depending on volunteers to accomplish their work.
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The excitement and euphoria of the service-learning movement, fueled by dramatic stories of the benefits of linking learning and service masks underlying troubling issues. The limitations of service done in the name of service-learning are often overlooked and possible harm done by to communities by short term volunteers is ignored. Conversations about negative aspects of service-learning do surface occasionally in the hallways of the academy and in the lounges of service-learning conferences. There is talk of McService, service bites, quick fix service, happy meal community service, or service in a box. Discussions of the limits service-learning have surfaced on the Internet. Community leaders and agency representatives concerned about fundamental community change raise significant questions when given opportunity.
Unfortunately these voices are often informal and sporadic. Much of the discussion about service-learning is carried on by advocates. Most of the published research about service- learning is done by academicians particularly interested in the learning side of the equation. Community leaders and residents do not have a voice in the dialogue. The voice of community leaders committed to community development and structural change would be particularly helpful. Service is awarded something of a “sacred” status so it is neither popular nor politic to raise questions about the assumptions or unintended effects of volunteerism which often characterizes service-learning. However, if the service-learning movement is to reach maturity and live up to its potential, it must realistically face its limitations and broaden its emphasis beyond volunteerism. It must carefully examine what students learn about social problems and social structure through the kind of service service-learning does. It must examine the subtle effects of service on communities. This suggests both an agenda for planning and organizing service and a research agenda.
This paper is intended to be provocative and to generate such discussions and encourage such research.
Service-learning grows from mixed motives
Mixed motives in service learning is something that I’ve thought about since I was young. Although there are people out there that genuinely want to help others through service, it seems like there are many people that are doing it to feel good about themselves, or are doing it for their own personal benefit. Sometimes volunteer work is a requirement for an achievement, such as to get confirmed in the Catholic Church. Additionally, sometimes people will volunteer simply to build their resume, as Eby talks about later in this article. Although good still comes from volunteering, I think many people’s intentions aren’t for the benefit of the people they are helping. I think that in order to maximize the impact of service work and service learning, the intentions need to be focused on the benefit of others.
Your point is such an important one. LOTS of research shows how volunteers benefit – skills to put on their resume, new references and connections for jobs, improved skills, etc. Students who participate in these types of activities also tend to have higher graders and learn more. We’ll definitely be talking about this topic over the course of the semester!
Because of the strong emphasis on learning within service-learning, service can be subverted and become a “means to an end” rather than an end in itself. At its best, service should be defined by persons served and should be accountable to them in significant ways. Programs should be managed by local people and agencies controlled by them. Often service-learning is organized to respond to the needs of an academic institution which sponsors it, the needs of students, the needs of an instructor, or the needs of a course. The needs of the agency and the community often come last.
I have always wondered if others realized this. It is always “which organization fits MY schedule, which one is the easiest to work with, ect.” It often is not about what the organization itself needs. I feel as if most people completing service learning have good intentions but want the agency/community to work with them instead of the other way around. I am guilty of doing this as many of us are. Now reading over this article I realize that in some cases you may do more harm than good as you are asking the agency to form to your needs instead of tending to their needs which is the whole point .
Such a great insight and an easy thing to overlook. Yes, often we want projects that fit our schedules and/or make us “feel good.” I have definitely been guilty of this! We’ll talk a lot about doing projects that the community needs done…and how we can cope with it when it isn’t exactly what we want to be doing.
This paragraph covers something I have noticed in every service learning capacity I have been a part of. Those who are volunteering always have their needs met above toe community they are serving. I understand this in a sense, because without the volunteers there would be no service. However, I believe that the community should still be put first because that is always who the focus should be on in these situations.
Good point. As I have said a couple times in class, I am hoping that we can use the word “AND” a lot this semester. I hope we can find ways that we might benefit (perhaps not necessarily in ways like resume padding but in new perspectives that might change our actions going forward) AND find ways that our community partner can benefit. Looking forward to working through it in class.
There are other forces which dilute both the motivation and the performance of service. The need for service-learning to gain legitimacy with doubting colleagues in the academy is a powerful force to redirect energies from service toward learning. Colleges and universities sometimes use service-learning as a public relations device to enhance their reputations in their communities in order to raise funds and recruit students or to mask negative impacts of other actions they take. Students sometimes use service-learning to make themselves feel good or to strengthen their resumes. They may use service-learning to avoid writing requirements or other course requirements when options are given. Agencies use service-learning to get free labor and to gain prestige. The fact that agencies will take almost any warm body is a sad commentary on
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how much they need help. Participation in service-learning programs gives agencies access to a college or university and the prestige and help that brings. Religious students sometimes use service as a means to gain converts. Businesses support service to enhance their reputations and sometimes to legitimize or divert attention from other practices which may not be in the best interests of the community.
There is also danger of “using” individuals and communities in inappropriate ways as laboratories or as subjects for experiment and practice. Community members become objects rather than participants or passive recipients rather than actors. The fact that service-learning mixes objectives has potential for prostituting service by making it serve objectives which contribute to the students or the college or university rather than to the community.
With a community service project like the one we are doing for class, I found this paragraph to describe a potential fear I have. There is a risk of exploiting individuals only for their experiences. Especially with a project like this, these young adults are doing a very big favor. They are speaking about their own lives, and their struggles in front of a college sociology class. I hope that with the right training, we can all approach this project with empathy, understanding, and thoughtfulness.
Service-learning is based on a simplistic understanding of service
The service-learning movement is fond of the quotation from Martin Luther King. “Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
While it is true that anyone can serve, it is also true as Allan Keith-Lucas (1972 p.119) comments that, “To help another human being may sound like a very simple process. Actually it is one of the hardest things that anyone can be called to do.” When service-learning is done without proper selection of students and without appropriate training, orientation and reflection, it can support ineffective and sometimes harmful kinds of service. Such service trivializes service and demeans service professions.
This is something that I have been preaching for years. Service-learning can be counterproductive when there is a lack of proper training and reflection in order to effectively accomplish the mission. We need to really sit back and think about how to best approach the situation and place our expectations and generalizations on the shelf while learning and mastering the art of learning and listening before helping.
Sounds like a great endorsement for the reflection papers we are writing this semester Jymil! Thank you!
Service-learning teaches a false understanding of need
John McKnight (1996) in an insightful discussion of “Professionalizing Service and Disabling Help” discusses the concept of need often carried by students into service-learning assignments. Need, he says, is often defined as deficiency or as the lack of something a client needs or wants. The deficiency is placed in the client. Deficiencies are translated into a set of disconnected parts and treated with specialized service. Needs are understood to reside in the individual rather than in the system. Each need can be isolated as a discrete deficiency. Service is provided in discrete units directly targeted to a particular deficiency.
Freire (1971, p. 53) uses images borrowed from a “banking” system to describe this understanding of education. The system acts as if students are empty receptacles to be filled by the teacher. Education becomes an act of transferring knowledge from the teacher to the student. Students are passive depositories and teachers depositors.
This understanding of need as deficiency reinforces simplistic understandings of social problems and ignores resources and strengths already in communities. It is rewarding for a student to share love, hugs, and mathematics with a student in a tutoring program, but this individualization of social issues ignores structural components and causes. Often students who do service-learning enter communities from outside. This reinforces the idea that communities
I think it is very common for students to think that certain places need outside resources and often separate themselves from the places they volunteer at. This is an interesting topic for me because I have thought like that before. Therefore, learning about service and volunteer is important so that we can understand more about the world and the root problems different people face, instead of thinking that we can solve a public issue just by volunteering.
Great point and hopefully we can see that communities usually know what they need better than anyone from the outside. Our job is to listen to what they need and use the resources we have to make it happen.
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themselves are deficient and need outside resources to work at their problems. By defining needs as deficiencies, students are able to separate themselves from the problems they encounter. They fail to see that often the same social structures which work well for them create the needs in the communities in which they do service-learning. By focusing on individualized need and individualized service students miss the systemic nature of social life.
Defining need as deficiency also reinforces the fundamental misunderstanding among many Americans found by Bellah (1985) and colleagues. They discovered that while most people they surveyed thought the world was going to “hell in a handbasket,” most also were optimistic about their own personal futures. They failed to grasp the fundamental fact that their individual futures were intrinsically linked to the future of the society. A Somali proverb states that the presence of a man in a village who is too poor to own a camel is an embarrassment to the entire village. In America the village blames the man for his poverty! Unfortunately, service-learning when it is characterized by individualistic understandings of need perpetuates this kind of individualism.
Service-learning teaches a false understanding of response to need
Help according to McKnight (1996) is often offered as a mirror image of the individualized definition of need. The answer to need as deficiency is an outside person whose service fills the deficiency. This exaggerates the importance of the person who serves, demeans the person served and ignores resources in the community such as peers, families and community leaders. It fails to recognize the political, social and economic factors which create the need.
This definition of response allows service to be shaped to reflect the skills, schedules, interests, and learning agenda of the students in service-learning rather than to meet real community needs. Needs are defined in terms of what students have to offer. “To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Resources in the community are often ignored. Too often service-learning reinforces assumptions of persons who need help that they do not have the resources to solve their own problems. It communicates to communities that they too are deficient and that the answers to the issues they face must come from outside. Service-learning tends to skew programs toward the needs of students rather toward the needs of communities. It often ameliorative rather than oriented toward change of social structures. It puts band-aids on deeply rooted problems and gives students an inadequate understanding of service.
The idea the needs of a particular community, the one being assisted, is determined by what the helper, or the students, have to offer is fascinatingly accurate. At first I didn’t quite understand what the author was getting at, but the analogy using a hammer hit the nail on the head for me. By opening my eyes to the impact of preconceived struggles on one’s ability to help another it has only reinstated the fact that we have to go into this project open-minded in order for it to be a success.
This is such a good point! I am so guilty of doing this in past projects – both as a student and as a teacher. It is an easy trap to fall into. We won’t get it perfect this semester but we will keep this insight in mind and see what we can do!
I have not thought about it in this way before. Service learning is supposed to be about helping the community but often gets so caught up in the learning part that it falls short in the service side. Instead of helping the community repair itself and continue to solve its own problems, it is making it seem like solutions must come from the help of others. The focus should be on healing the community instead of the teaching the volunteers.
I am so glad you picked up on the point that the community needs to be at the center of service projects. We have to be aware of the power dynamics that come with projects like this. I am looking forward to talking more with you and the rest of the class about what can and should volunteers get out of this. I don’t think Eby says it directly but we might take some guesses.
Service-learning diverts attention from social policy to volunteerism
Most service-learning programs include volunteer service. The President’s summit on volunteerism, the many state and local follow-up summits and the visibility given to volunteerism by national figures such as General Powell have elevated volunteerism to almost sacred status. While the importance and significance of volunteerism cannot be overstated, volunteerism and private programs cannot substitute for appropriate governmental action and social policy. At a recent regional meeting touting volunteer service and service-learning, both the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Mayor of the City of Harrisburg stated that government can reduce its role now that volunteerism is increasing. It is tempting to see volunteerism as a viable response to deeply rooted social issues.
I found this interesting because I agree it is tempting to see volunteerism as a response to social issues. I now understand what they mean when they say it is tempting. I think many people feel volunteering makes a social situation better. While it can help in a small way, it cannot be as powerful as fighting for change or activism. It can help the current problem but not solve anything for the future. Many people think if they do this, they can stop instead of working for future change. It is just taking this concept to the next level past just volunteering in the time. It focuses on the future.
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The fallacy of that claim is evident when noting that $16 billion annual reduction in programs for the poor in the recent welfare reform bill approved by congress compares with the $11 billion total of all secular and private giving for the poor (Wallis, 1997). If service-learning diverts effort from social policy initiatives to volunteerism it will do a major disservice to those it is designed to help.
Service-learning encourages diversion of agency agendas
The existence of a ready source of well motivated and generally competent service-learning volunteers encourages agencies to divert energies to meet the needs and interests of the volunteers sometimes at the expense of their own mission. Time spent catering to needs of volunteers and participating in their learning robs time from agency work. Time required to develop and run programs designed for short-term, untrained volunteers from outside the community detracts from time needed to involve community residents in working at community issues and to design programs which have long term structural impacts.
I discussed in my Flipgrid video that I went on a short term mission trip to Camden, New Jersey. The ministry that hosted the trip had good intentions, but the service options they gave us every day seemed inadequate considering the needs of the city’s residents. There were at least 50 of us, and we were going to daycares and assisted living homes for mundane tasks. I remember I was at a kitchen that provided lunch to the community every day. The women in the kitchen did not need my help and they had to find something for my friend and I to do. So, we chopped lettuce for the whole day! Then the next day, I set up chairs for a concert at a private assisted living home. I understand that the help was appreciated, but I felt as if there was no clear meaning or structure to this mission. We were just assistants at private facilities that already had employees, and were already making a difference to the community every day.
Yes, unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. We will look at a few short videos in class that make similar points. Looking forward to talking more!
Service-learning can do harm
Service-learning exists within a number of constraints imposed by its very nature. Students must serve on schedules dictated by the college calendar, sports events, classes, availability of transportation, and their many personal commitments. Safety and liability considerations impact what they can do. When service-learning is done within a course, activities must fit with course objectives. Many students have little experience working with people different from themselves or little exposure to the issues involved in their service activity. Many professors are experts in their disciplines but not in community service or cross cultural relationships.
Throughout high school, as I discussed in my video, I had to have a certain amount of hours of community service to graduate. That being said, there were only a certain amount of things that we would be able to do for these hours. At the time I never saw this as a problem since I believed the school knew best. However, after reading this, I believe that there needs to be fewer restrictions until those giving out the assignment are truly sure of what will ultimately benefit the community. Going forward, I believe there must be more opportunities for people to do community service with less focus on what couldn’t be service and more focus on what could be.
Well, our work here is done – ha! My hope is that you will start to think about things a little differently. You may not change your mind, but we should always be thinking about things. Especially with all of your fantastic new sociological tools! :)
Service-learning has potential to do actual harm to individuals, particularly to children with whom students work. Because students come and go, relationships are short term. What may be a casual relationship for a student may be very significant relationship for a child or young adult in the program. Breaking the relationship at the end of the service-learning assignment can be traumatic and can add to the fragmentation already typical of poor communities. Students may reflect ethnocentrism and racism in ways that are harmful. Idealistic students may inappropriately criticize agency practices and policies.
Yes, this could especially be the case with young people who have a history in foster care. They can be a little tired of people coming in and out of their lives.
Implications for design of service-learning
Admittedly, the discussion above is provocative and based on stereotypes and broad generalizations of volunteer service and service-learning. There are many service-learning programs which do not fit the stereotypes. But unfortunately many do.
As it matures, service-learning must go beyond “good intentions” (Illich, 1990) and “do goodism” to incorporate “state of the art” theoretical understanding and principles of good practice for service and social change. A beginning agenda to help move in this direction might include the following points.
I think that this is one of the key issues on service learning. While it is incredibly useful for students to go through service learning, it also needs to benefit the community. Therefore it must go past good intentions and actually achieve substantial change to be considered successful. Building off what Amy said we need to shift away from the egoism in service and actually serve.
Yes, there can definitely be a lot of egoism in service learning and similar projects. We’ll probably be guilty of this at times also…but I am confident with this group that we will keep each other on track!
Service-learning must incorporate the perspectives of all of its stakeholders
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Service-learning brings together six sets of primary stakeholders; students, faculty, educational institutions, service recipients, community agencies, and communities. Each of these stakeholders has its own agenda and interests. Unfortunately very few discussions of service- learning give voice to all of these stakeholders.
One of the major challenges of service-learning at this stage of its development is to bring together with integrity the interests and cultures of all stakeholders. This is no easy task. Sven Groennings after interviewing more than 20 service agencies on behalf of the Association of Episcopal Colleges wrote, “While both service agencies and educational institutions are stakeholders in service-learning, the partners represent two cultures, which differ in purposes and considerably in vocabulary. Each of the partnering sectors lacks a solid widely-shared understanding of the dynamics of the other. There are weaknesses in the structure of inter- institutional relationships (“disconnects”) which hamper communication, conflict resolution and the development of leaders who are accustomed to working together” (Groennings, 1997). The “disconnects” are even greater between other pairs of stakeholders in the matrix. Too often conversation and planning is done by each group alone or in pairs, rather than with representatives from all groups.
Authentic partnerships between colleges and communities are essential
For learning to occur in service-learning there must be careful planning and clear objectives, the experience must be linked integrally with academic courses, and the experience must include structured reflection. The most critical factor in the service component is the local agency which provides the setting for students to work. It is important for the agency to have authentic roots in the community and to provide continuity for programs in which students serve and for the relationships which short-term service-learning students build.
Effective programs include training, supervision, monitoring, support and evaluation. Much of this must be done by the agency. To do this well requires a heavy investment of agency resources. Most agencies are already stretched beyond their capacities. They have limited resources to respond to unending need.
Priority must be placed on developing clear expectations and mutual understandings between partners. It is also important for the college or university to contribute their “fair share” to the partnership. There are many ways this could happen but often does not. Colleges might provide financial reimbursement for agency time invested in service-learning students. Or they might provide other in-kind resources such as research, consultation, use of university facilities, or program evaluation. However this is often difficult because service-learning is not fully incorporated into the infra-structure of the college or university. Individual faculty often carry the additional work load and cost to incorporate service-learning into courses. For authentic partnerships between colleges and universities and communities to develop, ways must be found to incorporate service-learning into budgets and into faculty and staff loads.
Principles of good practice must be followed
The Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning developed by more
than 70 organizations at a Wingspread conference in 1989 (Hornet & Poulsen) provide a
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framework for programs of high quality. These principles call for service-learning to include responsible and challenging actions for the common good, critical reflection on activities, clear goals, involvement of those with needs in defining needs, identification of clear responsibilities of all partners, careful matching of providers and needs, sustained organizational commitment, providing training, supervision monitoring, support recognition and evaluation of programs, flexible and appropriate time commitments, and participation with diverse populations. This set of principles provides an excellent checklist for planning service-learning.
The planning and evaluation of service provides an opportunity for service-learning to incorporate an interdisciplinary approach so central to the concept of service-learning itself. Disciplines such as social work, political science, sociology, organizational behavior and community development should be generously used by the administrators of service learning activities. Frequently practitioners of service-learning are long on motivation and good will but short on expertise that relates to social and community change. There is a particular challenge to design programs which can use short term service-learning students in ways which fit into long term community programs or to find ways for students to spend longer periods of time in agencies.
The learning agenda must include social structural issues
Okay, so maybe it is no surprise that I picked this one! But I do think that sociological principles like the ones we are covering in our class could help all service-learning, community-engagement and volunteer efforts. It is important for people to think about the difference between personal troubles and public issues in our community. This understanding will help move us from “bandaid” solutions that are temporary fixes to more lasting social change.
Learning in service-learning is both intentional and serendipitous. It is important to thoughtfully manage both areas. Curricular content should help students to develop what is often called a ‘sociological imagination,” that is the ability to see patterns, structures and social context. C. Wright Mills (1959) talks about “personal troubles of milieu“ which are rooted in the character of the individual and “public issues of social structure” which transcend the individual. Most students do not make the distinction intuitively. They must be helped to see structural conditions. Training, supervision and reflection must give careful attention to sensitize students to see factors beyond those residing in individuals.
Students tend to reflect on service-learning primarily in egocentric terms. They are quick to comment on the meaning service added to their college experience or the relationships they developed. They frequently reflect on changes in personal attitudes such as decreases in racism and increases in empathy for persons in need. This is important. But reflection must also include critical analysis and understanding of theoretical issues, service strategies, social change, agency policies, social policies, and community structure.
The idea that students are quick to reflect on their service-learning egocentrically was very evident in my high school. Peers would come back from mission trips or volunteer opportunities claiming it “changed them forever” but never acted on those apparent changes. I think they failed to realize that those trips are not for their benefit, it is to help people who need it and hopefully strive for social change in the future. I think this paragraph emphasizes the need to go one step further.
Your comment made me think of a lot the selfies that people take when volunteering and then post on social media (no judgement…guilty of all of breaking all of Eby’s principles at some point in my life!) I thought about this with your comment…reminds me of our conversation in class about identity. How we might use social media or other ways to make others think a certain way about us. A way that somehow gives us more status or power.
This is definitely something I have seen before. We are hot-wired to always think selfishly about how I am affected by something instead of considering the potential impact (good or bad) we had on the actual community. There’s a really interesting book that’s on my reading list called “When Helping Hurts” that talks about this issue and how we can actually make things worse sometimes. This is one of the reasons, as a Christian, I am not always a big advocate for “short term mission trips” like Amy mentioned. We tend to ignore the impact we have on the place we went to and instead focus on how that experience enlightened us and enriched us. However (there’s always a silver lining), even though this is a selfish attitude, this desire to feel good about helping other people, while selfish, may still propel us to more service, so that’s interesting.
Definitely a good book to have on your list! I also would add Toxic Charities: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help to your list. Lots of interesting ideas to consider in both of those books.
I am sad because my computer just restarted and I lost everything I typed but anywho, I find this paragraph most relevant to issues that impact the service and community aspect that’s been done by every individual trying to get into college. Sadly, the statements from this paragraph that stuck out the most were about the reflection of personal improvement resulting from completing community service, and not so much the benefits to society. Once service learning projects are complete, it’s viewed more as hours and advantages on one’s resume and transcript. This is the opposite of the true purpose to completely service learning. The purpose strecthes beyond the endless competitions as to who competed the most hours, it’s about how the community was benefitted and should open up our wyes to new ways that community service can be completed in order to continue and contribute to our community. Once the hours are complete snd logged on a college application, the issues never stop. Although personal growth is important, it’s not the bigger picture. WE need to stop viewing community service as bragging rights, it’s honestly highly disrespectful to our community. If anything, we should be able to come out of community service with more knowledge on spreading the word on the issues at hand without feeling the need to even claim personal involvement in the issue. That is very controversial but it does tie into the missed point that the author is making. We are failing to contribute to our society but not taking advantages of the larger gains made than personal growth and development. We need to be asking question such as “How did what I do today improve the lives of other in my society?” and “What can I do to continue to contribute and increase the number of people wanting to understand and help out?”
These are all excellent points. I agree with you that Eby is trying to get us to think about the “so what?” I think you are on to something with your ideas about spreading awareness and being thoughtful about how we use our experiences to create positive change…looking forward to talking about this in class.
Advocacy and community development must be included
The short term nature of service- learning almost forces it to rely on settings which provide opportunity for direct service. However, as service-learning matures it is especially important to broaden service opportunities to include advocacy and community development.
Research Agenda
The issues raised above suggest a research agenda. There is a great need for case studies showing creative and innovative ways to do effective service in service-learning. Descriptions of exemplary programs can be used as models for planning and evaluation. Studies of ineffective
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programs can help identify critical factors for success. Research should specifically examine the impact of service-learning on local communities and on persons served. Doing this requires using outcome measures rather than more commonly used input measures such as hours served or tasks done. Case studies can be used effectively for assessment (Driscoll, Holland, Gelmon, & Kerrigan, 1996).
There is also need for research on short term service and volunteerism particularly as it affects agencies and communities. It is important to understand at greater depth the issues raised in the first section of this paper. Work needs to be done to identify the critical factors which determine the outcomes of service-learning. Additional research on the impact of service- learning could contribute greatly to improving quality and impact. A check list for planning the service component of service-learning would be helpful.
We don’t often think of any limitations or criticisms of volunteerism or service work, so it is interesting to me reading this seeing that there are. Often times we do service work and think that what they did was enough,and it clears their conscience so they feel that they don’t need to do it anymore. Short-term service can be beneficial, but not as beneficial as long-term service.
This is a really good point Caroline. We often only have a short amount of time to give so it is interesting to think about how we can be most helpful if that is the case. I have a hunch this will come up in our conversations this semester.
Summary
Service-learning has great potential to transform teaching and learning. It also has great potential to provide quality programs and people to local agencies to work with them to transformcommunities.However, ifdonepoorlyservice-learningcanteachinadequate conceptions of need and service, it can divert resources of service agencies and can do real harm in communities.
As service-learning matures, it must realistically face its limitations and realistically recognize both strengths and weaknesses. The answer to criticisms is not to abandon service- learning but to structure both learning and service to build on strengths and compensate for limitations.
One of the challenges facing service-learning is to bring to the service end of the service- learning equation the same level of rigor, expertise, and critical analysis that has been applied to learning. This will include responding to the legitimate interests of all the stakeholders, following principles of good practice, developing strong college/community partnerships which reflect quality and reciprocity, teaching a sociological imagination, incorporating advocacy and community development opportunities, and developing evaluation and assessment strategies which will assure continued program improvement.
References
Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W., Swindler, A., & Tipton, S. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Driscoll, A., & Holland, B., & Gelmon, S., & Kerrigan, S. (1996) An assessment model for service-learning: Comprehensive case studies of impact on faculty, students, community and institution. Michigan Journal of community Service Learning, 3:66-71.
Freire, Paulo (1971). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder.Groennings, S. (1997). Reconciling Agendas: Agencies and colleges face service-learning.
An unpublished paper presented at a conference sponsored by the Association of Episcopal Colleges and Universities at Montreat North Carolina, October 31-Nov.2, 1997.
Hornet, E. P., & Poulsen, S. J. (1989). Principles of good practice for combining service and learning. The Johnson Foundation.
Illich, I. (1990). To hell with good intentions. In J. Kendall (Ed.), Combining service and learning: A resource book for community and public service (Vol. I, pp. 314-320). Raleigh, NC: National Society for Internships and Experiential Education.
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General Document Comments 0
I think this solution is important, especially, with service learning abroad like mission trips. Often, service learning turns into modern day colonialism through “the white savior complex” and “American Exceptionalism”. These two concepts glorify ideas or symbols of the West should be strived for and spread around the world. Missions and service learning historically has roots in civilizing a demographic, and often does more harm than good today. And often lead to poverty tourism of another country. I think with missions and service learning, it is important to do you research and partner with local organizations and NGOs that are already doing good work and making a genuine difference.
Good points Simone. I have a few short videos we will look at in class that highlight some of the points you mention about volunteer tourism. I think it will be an interesting conversation!
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