Saturday, February 9, 2008
Is there a teacher in this classroom?
When we are practicing service-learning, simple understandings of server and servee dissolve. In service-learning practice there is a reciprocity that complicates general language labels. Should we then maintain the labels of teacher and student in a classroom that is oriented around service-learning pedagogy? It seems to me that if we are going to hope for a dynamic serving and learning experience for students in community organizations then we should emulate the same dynamic environment in the classroom. In the service-learning oriented classroom those traditionally labeled "students" should have the opportunity to offer input in course design and goals. Those traditionally understood as the "teacher" should leave the podium for a few moments and join the class in the growing process. But is this too much to hope for? Such a model or practice challenges long standing traditions in academia. The neat and easy to understand labels of teacher and student would become more vague, and perhaps most of all the obvious relationship of power between teacher and student would become something closer to equal. Service-learning can be something radical, can traditional academia handle it?
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The trick here is that there is another layer beyond student and teacher to contend with - that of community partner. Our community partners in the service-learning process are both teachers and learners. It seems to me that this dual role can inform the way things shape up back in the classroom as well. Can a teacher assume a learner role? What does it look and feel like to have a student prompt learning on the part of the teacher? It seems to me that this is the way education has been moving over the past two decades at least, and mistakes have been made on the edges - both giving too much "teaching" license to students with too little actual knowledge and experience; and the converse, asking teachers to pretend they know everything, when they don't, and they can't. My experience as a teacher, a student, and a practioner of pedagogical experimentation is that there are many, many fine examples available of teachers who model lifelong learning in very healthy ways.
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