In the Service of What?

These authors Kahne and Westheimer argue that service learning is more complicated than it may seem to certain students and it may take on a different level of importance for many as well. Most teachers and legislators advocate service learning as a part of the curriculum and policy makers have initiated The National and Community Service Act of 1990 and President Clinton's National Service Trust Act of 1993. The reading at one point discusses a teacher, Mr. Johnson, who required his students to involve themselves to participate in community service projects of their own choosing. One student worked in a center for babies whose mothers had high levels of crack cocaine in their bloodstream during pregnancy and another student devoted time to "help the elderly" in which she cleaned her grandmother's house for her. It seems that some students take service learning more seriously than others and that the question "In Service of What" applies to the different methods by which the required time to complete the goal of the service learning or the path that the student takes to achieve this are very varied and some display a lack of true passion or interest in learning how to truly be of service to one's community.
The reading also discusses the problem of service learning in the sense of the only thing a student takes away from it is feeling like they've completed a civic duty and taking pride in themselves and giving a pat on the back to their ego.
The student should focus more on trying to find where they relate to the person who is in need and how they got there to try and discover the underlying problems in the system that has failed them. An example of a story is given with students who devote time to a middle school in a "bad part of town". The students are warned by parents and others that it is dangerous and some parents even said that they did not want their students attending this service learning experience because they thought they would be in an environment that was full of violence, bad behavior and filth. When these students helped the middle school students in the "bad neighborhood", they found them to be friendly, attentive, and well behaved.
They also found the community to not be what was mentioned to them before attending the project. They saw it in a more positive light by experiencing it first hand. This is also an integral part of a service learning experience, to first associate yourself with another person in need in the goal of acknowledging assimilation and to then build off a negative societal connotation and abolish a myth and form your own opinion based on experience.

The following video shows a service learning project where students involved themselves in a community in Detroit where they helped give children "something to do" at a park. One resident of the area who has been there since 1950 said they would benefit from more events like this where the children could play and have fun. Directly helping a whole community in this way is an extremely wonderful thing to do- to experience the community and the people directly and immerse yourself in the culture and helping out children, teens and adults smile and enjoy life.