Ethical Issues In Service Learning Essay
Ethical Issues in Service Learning: The Experience and the Experiment
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. The American College 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 …show more content…
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
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. The American College 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 …show more content…
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