Kahne and Westheimer

" In The Service of What"
Shannon Holmes
Talking points #5

This article was good in the way that it taught you the differences between service learning projects. Some of them where based on giving back to the community and helping those less fortunate, and other service learning projects approached the students with more content and had a more long term educational, political,and humanitarian purpose to be carried on far passed the actual project. I feel that any type of service learning project is good for students as a way of experiencing life in a way you may have not been able to without the opportunity.

1) The hope was that students' values and beliefs might be transformed by these experiences. This quote from the article points out the reason for involving students in these projects.

2)The hope was that by manipulating the schools curriculum, they could ultimately change the world. Here they are stating that we need to not only involve students in srvice learning projects, we need to go the extra mile and form lesson around the actual service so that they learn real life lessons that they may act uppon in their lives.

3) The students in Mr. Johnson's class who assembled " Daily Life Kits" which he then distributed to the homeless, determined the kits contents without ever talking with homeless individuals or with those who had knowledge on the subject. He experienced the joys of service, but he had few opportunities for meaningful interactions through which caring relationships and understanding might develope. This statement is saying that students gat satisfaction out of this type of project as well, but the long term learning opportunity is missed when the service learning is not followed with educating the students more about the actual project and people it includes.