Extended Comments

"In the service of what? The politics of service learning" - Kahne & Westheimer
I used Ashley's blog to be the center of mine. 

1) “Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing rich educational experiences for students at all levels of schooling. Service learning makes students active participants in service learning projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of the students” (2).

Service learning does not just help the volunteer; it is also important to the person or group of people you are helping. The service learning project that we are completing in class helps us learn how to become teachers and get a look at what we will be working with someday.  I work in an ESL classroom where most of the students speak Spanish.  You leave an impact while working with your students.  I enjoy returning to my classroom every week just to see the children and have them say “Hello Miss Pires!”.Service learning is beneficial for everyone who is involved.

I agree with this because its true service learning not only benefits you, the volunteer but also the students that you help out and that you make an impact on. It helps to do a service learning project especially when you’re in school to become a teacher; it benefits you in so many ways. You learn what kind of teacher you want and don’t want to be when it’s your turn to be in that position. Like Ashley said, service learning is beneficial for everyone who is involved; it feels good leaving the classroom at the end of your session and know you’re doing something right.

2) “Boyer endeavored to create ‘a new Carnegie unit,’ the requirement that all students take part in volunteer activities in either their school or community as a condition for graduation from high school” (5).

I agree with Boyer, I believe every high school should have a service learning requirement.  High schools should have a minimum of twenty hours for their service learning/community service requirement.  Kids today are egocentric, they only care about themselves.  A service learning requirement would help students become aware of the contributions they could come up with just to help people in need.  One could volunteer at a hospital, a nursing home, a soup kitchen, or an animal rescue center.  No matter the place, the feeling is always the same.  Emotions will become involved and you will become attached. You can create happy memories just knowing that you can help someone in need. 

This I agree with also, kids in high school are unaware of the damage outside of their little bubbles they live in. Contributing some of your time to volunteer in any place like a nursing home, soup kitchen etc. can open up anyone’s eyes to things that people our age fail to recognize. Twenty hours of community service of your choice wouldn’t be such a bad requirement for students to graduate. Ashley couldn't have said it any better, “No matter the place, the feeling is always the same.  Emotions will become involved and you will become attached. You can create happy memories just knowing that you can help someone in need.” That’s the truth.

3) “A music director at a middle school we studied wanted her suburban, upper-middle class students to perform at a nearby elementary school in a poor neighborhood.  Some of the middle school parents objected, saying they were concerned for their child’s safety.  In a written evaluation, the students said that they had imagined ‘horrifying children running around on a dirty campus’”(7-8).

I find this to be very typical amongst the upper class.  They believe that because the school is in a poor and bad neighborhood that those students are delinquents and that they behave like animals.  Sadly, I was one of them before I began my placement.  I told my family what school I had been assigned to for my service learning and they told me it was not a great neighborhood and they were not too thrilled with my placement.  The students and I both learned that what we originally thought was just the complete opposite.  These are normal schools with regular children who are just trying to learn.  Our perspectives on schools in rough neighborhoods has changed.  Just like the old saying goes, “Never judge a book by its cover”.  How can dislike something or have a very strong opinion about it if you never experienced it yourself?

This shows that if Ashley had service learning in her high school as a requirement to graduate, she wouldn’t have felt like this when being placed in an urban school. This is why schools should enforce service learning/community service because it helps people, upper middle class specifically to not think that every rough neighborhood is threatening or has crazy kids running around.  I don’t blame Ashley or anyone in the upper middle class for feeling this way because I know that inner city schools are perceived this way, but I do blame it on the system because they should school everyone on things like this. But how could they school other upper middle class people about something they probably feel the same about?

Talking Point: Do you think high schools should enforce community service/service learning as a graduating requirement? Would it help students or not?

Somethings to look at: 
Case Studies throughout the years on Service Learning.
1992
1982
2006
2001