“Sometimes, givers benefit as much as much as receivers,” writes Lillian Bridwell-Bowles in Service-Learning: Help for Higher Education in the New Millenium? “In a perfect world,” as goes the common phrase, the givers and receivers would both equally benefit from a charitable experience, perhaps the receiver benefitting even more in order to counterbalance our social stratums. It is crucial to notice that Bowles begins her statement with “sometimes.” Bowles subtly nudges us in the ribs to point out that America’s outwardly projected vision of being the perfect philanthropist is either nonexistent, flawed, or both within our own land and among our own people. That is not to say we have not made progress. However, we still have not reached the homestretch in our quest for equality in America. Such an affair begins, as it often does, in the classroom. For the people of our country to make any remarkable change, they must be thoroughly educated on the issues and histories we are combatting; they must be taught how to handle these issues in a professional manner while at the same time becoming an independent member of our society, integrating their own ideas and solutions. This must start in academe as there is much history on certain issues such as poverty, homelessness, and disability that is indispensable as a resource for counterpoising these issues that cannot be found anywhere else other than in texts and published works. One may think that from this starting point, moving forward is only natural and will just “happen.” Knowledge is power, and with all of this knowledge about the underlying problems we want to solve, young, energetic, innovative, empowered students will have all the information they need to come to the rescue. Right? Well, we are not quite there yet. What must be considered when integrating service learning into higher education? Technology is now a staple in our everyday lives with assignments being given and completed on the Internet, etc. This allows for more time for intimate student-teacher discussion. However, writing in such a one-on-one manner may hold a student back in that he or she may write according to only his or her view of the world. To meet the need for more service-learning education, bigger classes may be seen as the solution financially. But large classes and their typical end-of-term papers may end up focusing on a blurry “big picture” rather than on individual experiences. Making service learning a requirement in academia may also reinforce social statuses or stratums among the givers and receivers, which in the end may push the two worlds apart even further, rather than indoctrinate a balancing act. How can we integrate efficacious service learning into our increasingly demanding contemporary academe while adequately preparing students for “real world” experience and similar future initiatives without reinforcing conventionalized standards and classifications?
The first problem that comes to most minds in the academic environment is finance. With the already increasingly expensive baccalaureate degree having less and less impact in the employing world, how can and will we be able to afford integrated service learning courses? For as much as students and parents pay now, they ask, as Bowles writes, “What kind of marketable ‘value-added’ skills and abilities can be guaranteed by increasingly expensive baccalaureate degrees?” Many would agree that the best resolution would be to have larger service learning classes so that more students have access to these types of experiences upon which they can build their “marketable ‘value-added’ skills and abilities.” Another author, Betty Smith Franklin, writes in Reading and Writing the World: Charity, Civic Engagement, and Social Action in Service Learning, sees a few flaws in the larger class two-for-one scenario. In a large class, simply “tacking service learning onto a curriculum” and basing it on the “unexamined claims of merit” may not have much of an effect other than to provide a façade for the inadequacies in our “curricular vision.” Another issue Franklin highlights is the all too common end-of-term papers and projects assigned in large classes. Not only are these assignments not long enough or in-depth enough to for students to truly reflect and write something pivotal or influential for their peers or community, this type of work “forecloses opportunities for students to revisit their work from a standpoint informed by multiple peer perspectives,” writes Franklin. Such a class would probably serve merely as a resumé builder and reinforce what students already know about poverty or disabilities, e.g. these problems exist. Also, as a single semester project, it would only be a short-term solution to the problems we are trying to fix through service learning: simply bringing a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish.
In too many classrooms in large universities, students in classes of hundreds often criticize the lack of student-faculty connection. This fact and the aforementioned disadvantages of large classes might lead to the belief that smaller classes and student-faculty ratios may be the solution. Bowles quotes Mel Elfin, who reaffirms that, “such one-on-one relationships are becoming increasingly important as colleges place more emphasis on so-called experiential-learning programs that take place outside the classroom.” Bowles writes, in response to a two-for-one larger scale approach, that students learn writing skills more rapidly when they are highly motivated in an environment where personal communication matters to them personally. Indeed, the large-scale approach would either not allow for this or make it a very difficult scenario to adopt in the classroom. Bowles also focuses strongly on the imposing role of technology in academe and ties it in with service learning, saying that technology has made the need for a smaller student-faculty ratio even “more dramatic,” as technology makes the connections to the world more withdrawn and unsentimental, which is not a circumstance we want to adapt to if we want to experience truth and counteract adverse truths in our community. So perhaps a smaller class and smaller student-faculty ratios are the answer to integrating efficacious service learning into the modern academe? Then there is the issue of writing assignments and texts within the smaller, more intimate classroom setting. Franklin reveals that assigning papers that become the “private text of the teacher and student” may turn the work back around to the starting point from which we would be trying to grow away from: where the “reading of the world” and the student’s writing is “primarily attuned to one’s own status within it.” Smaller classes may hold the answer, but they may be holding students back with unshared personal writings that reflect only their own thoughts and views, rather than receiving critique from peers or integrating a clear, complex view of the ‘bigger picture’ and the student’s place within it.
Smaller classes and ratios provide benefits when “direct involvement in something increases motivation,” therefore leading to “better learning when the contexts for new ideas are ‘authentic,’” proposes Bowles. She quotes a student from the University of Michigan who writes, “Simply invite someone to see the world as it really is through community service combined with critical reflection and people change themselves.” This is a powerful assertion and it exudes philanthropic perfection in very few words. It however, as Franklin indicates in her writings, it is too superficial a statement. Franklin recounts the story of one girl who, after becoming earnestly involved in her own service-oriented experience with the elderly, felt a deep sense of disconnect from her own age group and peers as she related more to the elderly’s sentiments. The girl did not feel comfortable divulging her feelings of disengagement with her friends and feared that this was “only the beginning of a large, painful transformation.” This circumstance is just one of the many that lie much deeper than the ‘make a change and everyone benefits’ mentality. Franklin discusses how the efforts to balance out the extremities of the social stratums may actually create a negative feedback loop where these collective roles are further engrained. She explains that historically, acts of charity were a concept of moral improvement in which those of higher status demonstrate good character to those “beneath” them. This “improvement by contact” ideal is reproduced today in community service programs across income or race. When one person, the giver in this case, takes time or money to help another, especially in the academic setting for course credit, he or she is probably unaware of the eminence he or she building in the relationship with the receiver. The giver enhances his or her privilege and status as an individual or representative group member. Franklin proclaims that if these social practices and power relations are not challenged, then the “fault” for suffering lies only on the sufferer. The giver, in this case, sympathizes for the sufferer, but does not empathize, and learns to “adjust” to this actuality, which in turn, leads us back to apathy, lack of action, absence of change, and therefore social statuses are begrudgingly restored.
Philanthropic perfection in academe and in communities across our country may seem out of reach or seem to be a fantasy. With all of the complicating issues having been brought into light, immediate actions needs to and should be taken. Often the question is: how can we adjust to the changing times? Even as this paper is written, our world and social norms are changing dramatically day-to-day. Instead of constantly trying to solicit answers and write documents, we need to get these documents out into the world and into academe so that something can be done. Perfection is not an attainable goal, but it is a good philosophy. However, all that can be done is to have a starting point and move forward from that point and address issues as they come along. There is no single answer, there is just breaking boundaries between conventionalized classifications and building bridges over these demolished boundaries. As for the many complications that may arise, especially the previously discussed predicaments, we will have to cross those bridges when we get to them.
References
Bridwell-Bowles, Lillian. “Service-Learning: Help for Higher Education in a New Millenium?” Writing in the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Eds. Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Waters. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997. 19-27.
Franklin, Betty. “Reading and Writing the World: Charity, Civic Engagement, and Social Action.” Reflections 1.2 (Fall 2000): 24-29.
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