Monday, March 24, 2008
Service-Learning: A Luxury Reserved for the Powerful?
Is service-learning merely a nicety, an extra-curricular activity reserved for those with the luxury of spare time? The luxury of spare time often correlates with power, constituted by affluence and influence. Is it then that service-learning is the tool of those with power, set over and against the marginalized? As such, do the claims of service-learning theorists and practitioners to promote justice and reciprocity ring hollow with the vacuous tones of hypocrisy? I think these are questions any service-learning practitioner must face, and do so with the real possibility that the answers could draw into question some some of the basic foundations concerning one's interactions with the world. If we cannot question the very motivations and meanings latent within the radical practice of service-learning that we advocate for, then what substantial benefit can we possibly have?
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It seems to me that service-learning could be all those things - niceties reserved for the powerful and privileged. But it isn't. There are too many stories of the power of service-learning, and of education more generally, to take the lives of those without power, and without resources, and change them too. In books like "How the Poor Get to College," researchers like Nidiffer and Levine uncover that a part of the road to this transformative institution that is higher education involves service. But a larger question implied in yours Bryan is for those of us with power and privilege, how do we avoid misusing service-learning, and again, I would add higher education more generally, simply for our own gain? This is why the constant refrain of our service-learnings "I learned so much more than I gave" rings some troublesome for me. In the economy of service-learning, and of liberal arts education, there is something unjust about the exchange that is ironic. And because it always seems to take us by surprise initially, we learn to live with it comfortably. For me, this raises root questions about the purpose of service to begin with. But that seems like the topic of another post...
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