Benefits of Service-Learning to Teachers and Students - Essay Example

? Service Learning as a Tool enabling Teachers to Work with Diversity Benefits of Service-Learning to Teachers and Students Many schools especially in the United States have embraced service learning as a means of promoting wholesome education to the students as well as improving the interpersonal skills of the teachers. In the process, the schools and other educational institutions use a technique that integrates the formal leaning in schools with community development services as to meet the needs of the community. While this method may appear complicated to some educationists, it works well for the teachers, students, and the community at large (National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, 2013). In this regard, service learning can be defined as the method that involves the teaching of students through active formal learning together with enhanced participation in the social contexts such as community development. In this regard, the principals and practices of the formal learning processes are run concurrently with the social practices that are mainly beneficial to the immediate community (Carrington & Saggers, 2008). Indeed, service learning is normally under the category of experimental education whereby its implementation occurs in the form of youth service. Due to its complex nature, service learning normally goes hand in hand with the interaction of various people of all diversity (Butin, 2008). Due to this effect, the academic service learning has proved itself beyond any reasonable doubt that it is certainly an effective program for preparing new teachers to work with people from diverse groups. This means that a number of specific skills and knowledge exist that both the students and the teachers acquire in the process. In this sense, these skills do a great deal of work in improving the educational outcomes of children from diverse backgrounds (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2011). This paper, with specific reference to Butin’s conceptual framework, analytically discusses the impact of academic service learning in promoting coping with diversity at the educational institutions in order to improve the learning outcomes of the students. Indeed, academic service learning is a crucial process of learning that incorporates both the formal and the communal components of the educational framework that the students undergo in order to be wholesome (Butin, 2008). While the students undergo thoughtfully organized learning, they in the process engage in such activities that are gainful to the community at large. This helps strengthen the bond between the teachers, students, and the locals of the communities with the schools being the epicenter of this mutual relationship. This service normally meets the needs of the immediate community through the integration of the academic curriculum of the students into the educational components that relate to the community in order to reflect an experience of service (National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, 2013). More often than not, the opportunities that service learning offers students range from the application of the learning of the classroom to the enhancement of the local agencies that are in existence for the benefit of the community (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2011). Therefore, service learning broadly involves the deliverance of service to others through an organized academic learning criterion (Butin, 2008). A simple service learning activity may involve collecting trash in the urban areas to add value to the community before proceeding to a thorough scrutiny of the effect of the trash collected on the environment through a classroom and laboratory process. Afterwards, the students may opt to share the results of their findings as far as pollution is concerned with the local residents in an attempt to sensitize them on the need to protect and conserve the environment (Carrington & Saggers, 2008). Through such activities of service learning, both students and teachers are bound to cope with and handle people from diverse backgrounds that the community presents (Baldwin, Buchanan, & Rudisill, 2007). In this regard, it is essential that the teachers and students involved in service learning activities be in apposition to work with such diversity in order for the students to realize positive learning outcomes. This means that through service learning, the teachers develop a high sense of interpersonal skills because of constant interaction with the community of which some of its members may be difficult to deal with (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2011). Perhaps it is appropriate at this point to consider the major examples of service learning with specific reference to such activities in the United States (Butin, 2008). The first one is the Elementary school students of Florida that made great strides in unearthing the consequences of natural disasters in their studies. For their case, they made use of family kits that they used to collect crucial papers in the event of evacuation and in the process ensured the distribution of such to the community members (Butin, 2005). A second example is the Girl Scouts initiative in West Virginia that evaluated the biological complexity and diversity of wetlands. In the learning process, the students assessed the need to remove species that were deemed invasive by monitoring the streams and presenting the outcomes to the Town Council (Baldwin, Buchanan, & Rudisill, 2007). This study was of great benefit to both the students’ intellectual progress and the Town Council. A second service-learning example is the Middle school students who explored the subject of nutrition and health where they provided fruits and vegetables to the community (Baldwin, Buchanan, & Rudisill, 2007). In the process, the students learned about the consequences of nutrition especially poor health. Lastly, the university students in Michigan engaged in massive campaigns in support of the local NGOs to thrive especially during the difficult economic periods. They honed their communication skills especially those concerned with working with diverse people from the non-profit organizations (Carrington & Saggers, 2008). Certainly, service learning puts a firm emphasis on the inclusion of the community and democratic participation that encourages the teachers to work as a team in meeting the challenges brought forth by the diverse needs of the students (National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, 2013). They do this by supporting the students in their quest to learn various subjects from both the classroom and social exposure. This inclusive approach is especially beneficial to the teachers and the students in that it enables the incorporation of social values into the curriculum, a key aspect of managing diversity (Butin, 2005). Although we live in a global village, most people especially the teachers and the educationists still face a huge challenge in dealing with diversity because more often, they operate under one environment with same people throughout the period (Baldwin, Buchanan, & Rudisill, 2007). Fortunately, service learning brings unique learning opportunities by inculcating social skills in the process. In order for the teachers to be better equipped to handle and work with the community, they need to involve their students in active service learning. This not only promotes interpersonal skills but also democracy, civility, social responsibility, and social justice (Carrington & Saggers, 2008). The main aim of the service-learning program is to challenge especially the pre-service teachers to embrace their respective schools as centers of diversity (Butin, 2005). These values of wealth are in turn entrusted in the community who are the caretakers of the immediate environment. In this respect, service learning maximizes the educational outcomes of students through the inclusive educational practices (Butin, 2003). This means that while service-learning program may aim at benefiting the school, it also benefits the community in a number of ways. First, it enhances the learning process by combining the theory with the practical experience in addition to improving on the citizenship and civic skills of the students. While the students get external exposure, the teachers learn a great deal as far as working with people from diverse backgrounds is concerned. According to Butin (2005), there are four major perspectives of service learning namely the cultural, postmodern, technical, and the political lenses. In summary, the technical aspect of the service-learning program mainly deals with the pedagogical elements especially the changes that the students experience while practicing the service-learning program (Butin, 2003). The cultural aspect on the other hand focuses on the implications and possible insinuations that the participants including the teachers and the students project in the course of the practice. Lastly but equally important, the political aspect of service learning tries to make changes to the unjust current and past political situations through subjective and agentive positions. This is closely related to the postmodern aspect that is concerned with redefining the relationship with self and largely the world (Butin, 2005). Butin used this conceptual framework to explain how service learning occurs within the education context (Butin, 2003). The lenses are very crucial in service learning in that they provide a platform for the association between the theory learnt in class and the actual practice of service learning (Butin, 2008). In essence, they reverse the liberal conceptualization of service to self to the much-adored service to others. In the end, both the teachers and the students gain a great deal in that service to diversity means more interaction and learning of various cultures that are essential for both personal, professional, and intellectual growth. Essentially, Butin’s (2005) conceptual model appears to be holistic where service learning is viewed as an equivalent and embodied, process, it is prudent to note that the process has numerous disruptions that leads to new directions and approaches. This means that service learning is a pedagogy that facilitates the connection of the theoretical comprehension of civic responsibility, ethical practice, and inclusion concept in practical living experience (Butin, 2005). References Baldwin, S. C., Buchanan, A. M., & Rudisill, M. E. (2007). What teacher candidates learned about diversity, social justice and themselves form service- learning experiences. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(4), 315-327. Butin, D. (2008). Justice-learning: Service-learning as justice oriented education. In, D. Butin (Ed.), Service- learning and social justice education: Strengthening justice –oriented community based models of teaching and learning. Abingdon, Oxon and N.Y.: Routledge. Butin, D. W. (2003). Of what use is it? Multiple conceptualizations of Service-learning in education. Teachers College Record, 105(9), 1674-1692. Butin, D. W. (2005). Service-learning as postmodern pedagogy. In D. Butin (Ed.), Service-learning in higher education: Critical issues and directions. N.Y., Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Carrington, S., & Saggers, B. (2008). Service-learning informing the development of an inclusive ethical framework for beginning teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(3), 795-806. Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2011). Service-Learning Program: What is Service-Learning? Retrieved from http://citl.indiana.edu/programs/serviceLearning/ National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. (2013). What is Service-Learning? Retrieved from http://www.servicelearning.org/what-is-service-learning Read More