Gail Heffner wrote:
>
> One of our faculty returned this summer from a conference on service
> learning with this concern, which we have been discussing this fall.
> For him, service learning is primarily a means to make his courses more vital
> for his students. But many of the people he met had what seemed to him to
> be a political agenda -some Marxist, some libertarian, some he couldn't tell what.
> He wants to know how deeply such "extra-educational goals" have become
> embedded in the service learning movement. Also the people he met were not
> able to clearly explain to him what their goals were for social change and
> what philosophical assumptions lay behind them. What are your
> perspectives on this? Maybe we could discuss this on the listserv.
>
> Gail Gunst Heffner
> Service-Learning Center
> Calvin College
> 3201 Burton, SE
> Grand Rapids, MI 49546
> (616) 957-6455
If anything, I believe service learning has an intrinsic belief in the
valuing of the individual to define his/her experience and to move on
from there. Once individuals outside this immediate experience become
engaged with a problem, they naturally begin to infuse their own
political agenda. It is unavoidable. However, if that agenda interferes
or creates tensions between individuals' experience of a social problem
and the political agenda of the service learner, then the service
learner must be open to questioning his/her agenda.
In terms of professionals and how they structure service-learning
experiences, I have to believe that they have to have political agendas.
How else could they dedicate so much energy and time to such a pedagogy.
Let's face it education is the most political endeavor possible. Whether
we admit it or not, we are transmitting values and values are at the
heart of politics. So any teacher, any educator is practicing politics.
Perhaps service-learning administrators are more aware of it and are
possibly more directive.
By the way, there are some really good books that discuss the political
agendas of educational structures (see Rober Dreeban, Linda McNeil,
Willis' "Learning to Labor" for a start).