Service
Learning
Writing
123
Volunteer to Help Yourself, not Others
Around the
country, many students are taking part in programs of service learning. In doing so they are presenting themselves as
being altruistic and selflessly helping others by means of some community
outreach program. These students
volunteer, through a class or program at their school, at various service
oriented organizations. They bring their
individual talents and their acquired knowledge to assist these groups in
whatever means they can. If the students
happen to be interior design majors they can redesign a homeless shelter to
make it more comfortable for the guests and better able to manage the high
volume of traffic that passes through.
If the student is an elementary education major they can volunteer to
tutor children at a local school, or assist at a Head Start. The service learning programs ideally place
the students at an organization that has the need for someone with the skills
the student is choosing to study. By doing so the organization can receive the highest benefits from
the help, receiving near professional services and an energetic body to call
on, without over-stretching the budget.
By placing
students in contact with organizations that can best utilize their skills and
interests, a situation is created that can be highly beneficial to both
parties. “A group of first-year students
. . . worked together to research and assemble an annual report, a newsletter,
and several public service announcements (PSAs) for
radio for WATCH” (Becker et al.
81). By the placement of these girls at
the women’s shelter, the organization got several radio announcements and other
reports, papers written. This is an
excellent example of service learning benefiting the student and the
group. The group had a need for
professional-type writing of the PSAs, letter and
report, and this need provided an opportunity for the students to experience
writing for a mass-media audience, not an often offered opportunity for
students. This is the goal of service
learning - place students in the community and let them help in manners they
can, also to experience problems they may or may not be able to solve. “Students’ acts of service are a promising
basis for their learning to build a just society, because, in these acts,
students see and address injustice at first hand”(Wallace). By choosing appropriate assignments for
students, or allowing students to choose their own, they not only learn to help
and learn the trade they participate in, but learn how society works and meets the needs of others.
Service
learning is a wonderful opportunity for the selfish student. It is presented as community service. It is called a win-win situation. The volunteer gets to feel good about themself for helping out and the
organization gets to have free labor.
Obviously the organization does get free labor and the volunteer helps
out, but the volunteer undeniably receives the greatest benefits in the
end. The student gets to freely test
their newly found skills, without question, upon an eager group that is
desperate for assistance. Where else
could someone, with no verifiable experience, gain such an opportunity? No person would hire a student, with no
background employment, to do the work that some do as service learning.
"Interior design students in Texas redesigned the Alzheimer care unit of a
local hospital while classmates renovated a homeless shelter. In Colorado, architectural students
redesigned a town hall" (Berson 2). Berson goes on to
state how additional students received school credit for producing a play. This is not an equitable trade. The volunteers in these examples are reaping
outlandish benefits, practical knowledge, otherwise unavailable to people with
the same qualifying experience. Should
it be required, since such wonderful experience and education is provided, for
the student to pay monetarily for the opportunity to volunteer? It is obvious upon investigation that the
student does end with the greater benefits.
The groups
accepting such helpers as the students are primarily non-profit, community
service organizations, such as women's shelters, homeless shelters and the
like, none of which have large sums of money.
Yet they give free employment experience to people in need of such
experience. They offer opportunities to
actually have your building design built, have your interior designs put to
use, place your radio advertisements on the air (Berson
2; Becker et al.). Such verifiable
experiences are highly sought after, extremely competitive, opportunities in
the job market, yet such volunteers for service learning positions are always
welcome and more are always needed. This
is most valuable experience for people in search of later employment, testing
their skills, and being in contact with others in their desired profession.
Service
learning is an invaluable experience, giving the opportunities of none other,
without any charge or cost to the volunteer but the time required to do
so. The gains are innumerable, the
greatest being the helping of those less fortunate, of those in need. Where else can you gain job experience without
having a job first? How else can you
help others in such a way that it benefits the giver more than it assists the
receiver? It is called a win-win
situation, but in actuality it is not.
The volunteer gains much more than could ever be given.
Works Cited
Berson, Judith S.
"A Marriage Made in Heaven:
Community Colleges and
Service
Learning" Nov 1995. Online:>http://www.broward.cc.fl.us/bcc/st_affairs/judith.html Jan 1999 [WWW document]
Becker, Sue, Bonnie Kimmel, Alaine
Murdock. "WATCH (Women and Their Children's Housing): Public Service Announcements." Rpt. in Watters, Ann and
Marjorie Ford. Writing for Change: A Community Reader.
Taylor, Jeremy.
"Service Learning: Education
with a Purpose." Rpt. in Watters, Ann and Marjorie Ford. Writing
for Change: A Community Reader.
Wallace, John.
"A Course on Social Justice." Rpt. in Watters, Ann and
Marjorie Ford. Writing for Change: A Community Reader.