Service-Learning within the Urban Context

Service learning, a teaching and learning pedagogy that connects individuals with real world experiences has been directly linked to positive outcomes. For example, youth who have participated in service learning programs have experienced greater academic success (i.e. improvement in grades, less behavioral problems, and more steady attendance). Other attributes have been associated with higher rates of self-esteem, greater involvement in civic activities, higher levels of social participation in communities and schools, and increased levels of self-esteem. These positive attributes have also been linked to greater connections that young people make with their communities and the perceptions communities have of young people (Billig, 2000).

The structured connection between the community and the individual (in this case the youth), shapes service learning experiences to truly provide an experiential situation for young people. In many cases, this service learning experience provides a greater depth and breadth of learning than what is offered in current classrooms. Teachers have commented that service learning provides another alternative to teaching important points and reinforcing both social and academic skills. The emphasis being on mostly the student and the community in which they are engaged, however, within urban schools, service learning has been known to create a transformative atmosphere in the classroom and beyond (Webster, Coffey & Simmons, 2008).

Educators, who teach in some of the most urban of areas, have voiced that service learning has the possibility to change lives. This is not to say that service learning is not transformational in other geographical contexts, but given the aforementioned conditions of urban communities, service learning has the potential to create a holistic change in the lives of individuals, teachers, their students and the communities in which they live.

Education can only be transformational if those involved are empowered to participate in the construction of their own identities and subjectivities. Additionally, students must be able to interrogate the social conditions surrounding them through dialogue about issues significant to their lives. Service-learning allows teachers to enact these aspects of transformational education. Through service-learning, teachers can move from the position of instructor to facilitator and can engage students in conversations that counter what Freire called the traditional transmission or banking model of education (1970). In service-learning, students, as well as teachers, become a part of a teaching method that encourages free thinking, critical reflection, and social change. Service-learning experiences have the ability to intimately connect youth to their communities. Through well structured experiences, youth are able to be a part of a process which not only critically examines issues, but also finds solutions. Through service-learning, students can understand the policies and courses of action which have created the conditions in which they live.

Finally, service learning can be the bridge between critical pedagogy and engagement permitting students to partake in activities which empower them to create positive changes. Thus, service learning can enable teachers to create social agents who are able to examine and more importantly address, vital issues on a local and global scale. Promoting this critical yet productive engagement enables teachers to not just teach to the standards, but rather create a standard of learning-- one that promotes both teacher and learner/student to be a vested partner and participant in the learning process.