Ethical Issues in Service Learning: The Experience and the Experiment

by

Dr. R. Madhavan,
(Assistant Professor, School of Law, SASTRA)

Introduction

Service Learning has emerged as an important pedagogical technique in higher

educational institutions worldwide and naturally has given rise to certain critical
questions regarding its practice. This is based on the reflections of The American
College, which, in the past four years has successfully implemented Service Learning
Program (hereafter SLP) and institutionalized it. The accumulated experience has
brought certain ethical issues to the fore, both as a technique as well as praxis. The paper
addresses some of the major ethical issues encountered by The American College and the
new model that the institution is trying to evolve to take the program to a higher plane of
action.

Limitations of the present model

As a pedagogical technique, SLP promises holistic understanding to students, not very
dissimilar to Gandhian technique of ‘constructive program’ which envisaged ‘learning in
a community context’ as its very core. Thus the philosophy of SLP is not something new
to the South Asian context and in fact, has a very rich history to draw upon. Enough
attention has already been paid by many practitioners to the differences between
volunteerism and SLPs and so we can perhaps do well to concentrate more upon the
limitations of SLP when it is only a part of an existing course. However one issue needs
to be highlighted. SLP does ensure some ameliorative services but without any
accountability to one of the important stakeholders, namely the community. Or in other
words, the Service Learning programs do not grasp the idea of service adequately.
‘Service’ as a concept should differ considerably in SLP from ‘Service’ in
‘Volunteering’. While ‘service’ in volunteering can be episodic, ‘service’ in SLP should
be based on sound philosophy, theory and research to serve both as an effective serving
and learning tool. As a model it should address the question of engaging students on a
short term in a community context and its implications for both the students as well as the
community.

In most SLP models, students are placed in a community context and by design, for a
limited period of time, maximum for a semester. And the most popular way of
institutionalizing SLP has been to incorporate it as integral part of an existing course.
And this model is not a unique one and has been a popular choice in many a higher
educational institution. A careful review of this model highlights certain deficiencies.
Most often than not the ‘service’ part in such a model becomes subservient to the
curricular requirements and effectively marginalizes the communities’ perceptions of
such ‘service’. And the second important aspect of this model is that since SLP is only a
partial component of a particular course, the students’ involvement in the service and
understanding of the issues are seriously undermined. Inherently, the model privileges the
teachers’ and students’ understanding of issues over the communities’ needs, perceptions
and resources. These are serious issues that need to be addressed with sensitivity to
transform the potential of SLP to reality.

Many higher educational institutions including The American College, has drawn upon
one of the Western models of SLP without sufficient sensitivity to South Asian history
and its realities. Also, by its insistence upon logging sufficient number of ‘service hours’,
SLP in this mode, does little to enhance the potential to develop important skills like
leadership and offers only limited scope to develop sensitivity about important issues like
marginalization, poverty and violence of oppressive social structures. The use of students
in SLP in service, which often quite regretfully is conducted without sufficient research
in to the issues, can cause potential damage both the students’ perceptions about the
issues as well as to efforts to find durable solutions to community’s problems.

New SLP: Action Research

The philosophy of Action Research privileges learning through experience and action
over that of rational insight as in objectivist science. The space for subjectivist
understanding of the issues and the participatory techniques ensure action research to be a
sensitive alternative to mere class room teaching. The new SLP model utilizes this
philosophy with embedded space for the development of service ethic and civic
responsibility among the learners.

Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Consumption:

A well designed action plan which is informed by serious research to address social
issues is the foundation for the new SLP. So, the new SLP model bases itself in action
research cycle and shall incorporate three aspects carefully: Research, Organizing &
Planning, and Implementation & Reflection. Research into problems shall inform the
curriculum. It would also factor communities’ perceptions, knowledge and resources. In
this sense the new model goes beyond mere experiential learning and empowers research
subjects to bring in their viewpoints to bear upon both the learning and service activity.
Once the theoretical aspects of the issues are clarified through research, SLP should move
into the second stage – namely, planning and organizing. The planning and organizing
phase should effectively result in an action-model, a model that would blend both
learning and service objectives. This phase should also have sufficient space for
collaborative efforts with community based organizations. The third phase in this model
shall involve actual implementation of the model in the field as well as structured time
for reflection. The model should enable the learners (i) to translate their class room
learning to practice as well as learn from the communities’ repository of indigenous
knowledge, (ii) develop sensitivity to social issues and (iii) gain informed awareness of
the issues rather than partial and truncated understanding. Thus the model embeds
knowledge creation within the ambit of knowledge consumption.

Integration of various disciplines:

The model would revolve around an organizing theme and the theme would integrate
three streams of knowledge namely, Physical and Computing Sciences, Life Sciences and
Social Sciences and Humanities. Research around the theme, for example, ‘Water’,
would be conducted from all the three perspectives and an effective action research
model would be devised where the students will have the choice of opting for any one
stream. However, since the model itself would incorporate all the three perspectives, the
students would gain holistic understanding of the issues. As the model itself would be
based on sound research and would have incorporated community’s perception, the
service objectives would carry better meaning for the community and would ensure their
participation. Thus the model goes well beyond expressing good intentions with some
service but combines sophisticated understanding of issues and problems from inter-
disciplinary perspectives with thoughtfully planned service activity. From the
practitioners viewpoint, it fosters inter disciplinary dialogue and from the students’
viewpoint it provides holistic understanding and from the communities’ perspective, it
ensures professional approach to important social issues.

It enables students to identify important curricular issues within a real world situation and
encourages critical thinking. As a pedagogical technique, it encourages open ended
learning and enables students to go beyond ‘right or final answers’ at the back of a book.
And it retains the potential to develop some important personality traits among the
learners: a sense of caring for others, generates emotional consequences which challenges
conventional values and ideas and supports emotional and cognitive development.

To summarise, the main aim of the new model is to design a well developed curriculum
with clear learning objectives and the model should meet a felt-community need with
structured time for students to reflect upon the experience. At the outset, it has been
proposed that each model would follow a three-semester cycle at the end of which the
model would be reviewed and the insights would be incorporated in to the new cycle that
would follow. While the model does not claim to be very unique, it is hoped that it offers
an interesting and viable alternative to some of the popular models. As any idea, the
model is open for criticism and improvement!

Note: This is the draft version of the paper I presented in the Workshop on Service
Learning Programme conducted by United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia
in May 2004.