A Seed of Service-Learning Planted Abroad

Last semester I had the privileged opportunity of studying in Budapest, Hungary with 17 other Calvin students under the leadership of Jeff Bouman, professor and director of the Service-Learning Center. In Budapest, Jeff undertook the project of implementing Service-Learning while studying abroad. Students in our group participated at various placements, including schools, a coffee shop ministry for youth, church choir director, as well as working for volunteer coordination agencies. Kendra Haan and myself were assigned to a high school on the north end of Buda.

The Alternative High School of Economics (AKG) in Budapest is unique among schools and service-learning placements in my experience. Partly due to the foreign context, but also partly due to it’s inherent quality and characteristics. Twice a week, Kendra and I would depart the dorm at 9:00am, ride a tram to the 86 bus, and then proceed to with our commute north, along the Danube River, north of Margit Island. Our first classes began loosely at 10:05 or 10:10.

 

As the name of the school suggests, it is alternative in its approach to teaching, learning, and appearance. Although the building doesn’t stand out among its neighbors, if you look closely some windows are covered with artwork to be seen through the natural lighting. Entering the school, student artwork is ubiquitous. Hanging from the ceiling, adorning walls, filling shelves, and even covering railings and stairwells, you could not escape the art in this school.

 

Structurally, the school really stood apart from orthodox educational institutions I’ve witnessed, observed, or passed through. Striving to keep up with the educational reforms of the 21st century, the school splits learning into two phases. The first (7-10) is more generic and doesn’t record marks. The second, (11-13) offers students choices in a focus of interest and grants students more autonomy in the school.

Also unique is the school’s system of patronage. From the students’ time of entering the school, they are paired with a teacher as their patron. Each teacher typically has 8-10 students. The teachers purpose ranges from mentoring to discipline to friend, depending on the student and situation. The students and patrons will remain together until the time of matriculation.

When we started, the English department at AKG shuffled Kendra and I around to various classes to participate in circle discussions. After about two weeks of this, we were split into different classes with various roles. As the semester carried on, my role became more concrete in some regards. I was paired with three students who excelled in their English classes and we formed a conversation group that met every week. In other classes, I would attend the normal class session instructed by the regular teacher and join the lesson. For a few weeks in the midst of the semester, I filled in for teachers that were absent with illness or in the hospital. Overall, it was a very wide range of English class experiences. During one hour, I could be participating in a teacher’s planned lesson and English grammatical game, then I would sit with the three students in our conversation group in a public area in the school and have open discussion, and following this I might be given a whole classroom without a teacher and basically told to do whatever. Learning to deal with the lack of direction was a lesson that took me a while to grasp. Especially as a service-learning placement, I am used to having my duties laid out clearly. At AKG, this was not the case. They placed a lot of trust in us and I think it was helpful and beneficial for both parties.

I also struggled with whom exactly I was serving during the semester. My first class visit revealed a student population of affluence. I am accustomed to service-learning placements at churches and public school systems in inner urban United States schools. How can I serve an affluent group of people and have it be beneficial to the work of building the kingdom? I struggled with this question all semester. Then, it came to me that perhaps I had the wrong framework. Rather than serving a certain rung on the societal ladder, I have been serving the universal educational institution. I have (hopefully) benefited the learning of others, and perhaps been a role model to students who could also participate in service-learning placements in school systems around Budapest. Because service-learning was a bit of a new idea to the students, maybe our presence planted a seed.

Taking on the role of teacher before a classroom full of high school students can really stretch ones capacity to love as well. My life thus far has found me in the role of peer or student much more than teacher in any context. To love students as a teacher was a different perspective. Often times, many students would either disengage the lesson or discussion, or be subtly disruptive. At AKG, discipline is given a different approach than regular schools, and as a visiting English student, I didn’t have the power anyways. In these situations, I let it go and made the best of the situation. At the end of the day, I knew that I had done my part, and to the students that wanted something from the situation, they took advantage of the opportunity.

Overall, I am very thankful that I made the decision to attend service-learning at AKG. I really enjoyed the semester here, even if my role was often times unclear and I was tossed into situations I didn’t feel prepared for. Through it all, I think I learned quite a bit about an alternative approach to education as well as gleaned much from my consistent interaction with Hungarians. I hope my presence helped further positive social change, though in the context of the larger educational system, I affected a small facet of it. It could be that I’ll continue this avenue of thought next year at AKG as a hired staff member. On one of my last visits to the school, the director of the English department at the school offered me a position teaching English in the Fall. I'm still deliberating over this decision.