COMBINING SERVICE AND LEARNING: AN INTRODUCTION FOR COOPERATIVE EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS

In the last half of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, the surge of interest in involving young people and adults in public and community service experiences has been tremendous. Through the Overseas Development Network, University YMCA 's, the Campus Outreach Opportunity League, and other groups, students are organizing themselves to begin programs. College and university presidents formed a "Campus Compact" to call for an increased commitment of their institutions to public service. Programs spring up in communities across the country to try to address the problem of illiteracy. Community agencies wrestle with how to involve hordes of volunteers in soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Through the Independent Sector, leaders in the nonprofit sector are urging adults and youth to contribute five percent of their time and their income to the causes they support. While Eastern Europe struggles with democratic reforms, report after report calls for increasing the civic awareness and commitment of our young people through public service in our own democracy. New federal legislation and bills in many states encourage youth community service.

As cooperative education professionals know, hands-on experiences in the community are essential for educating the next generation about human needs As cooperative education professionals know, hands-on experiences in the community are essential for educating the next generation about human needs

The Community Service Movement of the 1960s and 1970s

The current surge of interest and programs will be short-lived, however, if we fall into the same pitfalls that truncated a similar wave of interest in community and public service in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. In the early 1970s, students from campuses across the country worked in their communities through the national University Year for ACTION program. Volunteer and social action programs sprouted everywhere. Large urban corps programs developed in cities across the country to channel the energies and commitment of young people to help with the problems of the inner cities. Many young people and adults in diverse fields saw firsthand the tremendous potential for service and for learning that can be unleashed through direct involvement in the community.

But the student community service movement of the 1960s and 1970s did not last. Why? There were some very common - and in retrospect, predictable - pitfalls that brought the demise of many programs that involved young people in public service. We can learn some very important lessons and principles from this experience.

Lessons Learned. There are three primary lessons from the community service movement of the 1960s and 1970s that are valuable for cooperative education and service-learning programs today.

1. Most of the programs that did not survive were not integrated into the central mission and goals of the schools and agencies where they were based. They generally remained separate both administratively and budgetary. Thus, when money later ran tight, they were marginal to the institutions whose support was needed. Those based in colleges and high schools did not build the service experiences into the curriculum, which was the main expression of what the institution believes is important for students to learn. As early as 1968, the American Council on Education had already identified the need for "institutional support for the service curriculum" as a major issue (ACE, 1968, p. 2). Faculty members participated out of their hip pockets and their hearts, but this participation was not taken into account in their course loads, and certainly not in their tenure decisions. As one political scientist at a major research university expressed it, "The university was very supportive of my teaching students about public service and public issues as long I did not ask for money, secretarial assistance, tenure, a blurb in the catalogue, or time at faculty meetings."

   The same valuable lesson also came from the experiences of those who participated in the federal University Year for ACTION program (UY A), which from 1971 to 1979 involved more than 10,000 college students from 100 colleges and universities in community service projects. The UY A programs surviving today - for example, at the Universities of Rhode Island and Virginia - are those that built service-learning into the missions and curricula of their academic institutions. Most UY A programs that did not do this have not survived. Roger Henry, now at Brevard Community College, lamented about his work in the 1970s with Kent State University's former UYA program, for example, with this comment: "We focused on getting students involved and did not pay enough attention to faculty. That was our downfall (Henry, 1986)." In addition, many campus programs were initiated by student affairs staff who lacked the clout to gain support in the "coin of the realm" for most academic institutions - classes, full-time-equivalent students, and published research.

   On the community side, organizations and agencies also did not structure the supervision of students into their regular staff workloads in a significant way. As with the colleges and high schools, most of the programs were "nice, but extras." In both cases, when the enthusiastic advocate left or the supportive faculty member moved on, the􀀅e was no institutional base. There was no toehold in administrative structures and policies that helped to guarantee a continuing institutional commitment. Thus, many experienced the painful lesson of what happens when programs are not woven into the fabric of the institutions and agencies where they are based.

2. There are several important lessons related to the careful balancing of power in a community service program and the pitfalls of "helping others" and "doing good. " As an undergraduate tutor of farm children outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 1969 to 1971, I learned that universities and well-intentioned students cannot decide what "the community needs." When the superintendent invited us to "go back to the campus where you belong" and reminded us that he "didn't invite [us] to come teach [his J fifth graders how to do calculus anyway," I was given the vivid, firsthand lesson that people must decide what their own needs are and how those needs will be met.

   In 1974, after working with some of the initiators of the service-learning movement in the Southeast, I went to my first conference of the Society for Field Experience Education and the National Center for Public Service Internship Programs, both founded in 1971. (These two merged in 1978 to form the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education.) There I found out that people involved in similar efforts across the country were learning the same painful lessons. We were learning that balancing and respecting the needs of the community organization, the community residents whom the programs were intended to serve, the student (most of that movement did involve students), and the school was more difficult than one would think. We were learning that without clear expectations, continuing mechanisms for negotiation, and respect for the differing goals and needs of each of these parties, programs eventually lose the support of the multiple parties whose full participation is necessary for continuation.

   We were learning that without an emphasis on the relationship between the server and "those served" as a reciprocal exchange between equals, that relationship can easily break down. As Debbie Cotton observed in her work at the Volunteer Clearinghouse of the District of Columbia, "It is easy for the 'service' to become patronizing charity." Paternalism, unequal relationships between the parties involved, and a tendency to focus only on charity - "doing for" or "helping" others - rather than on supporting others to meet their own needs all became gaping pitfalls for program after well-intentioned program.

3. We learned that while it SOUNDS great to "help young people learn through service experiences in the community, " the service experience alone does not ensure that either significant learning or effective service will occur. Learning from service experiences is not automatic or easy to facilitate. Critical reflection by the student on what is being learned in the service experience is essential, but developing program structures that support this is difficult. As I completed graduate school and began working with several programs for undergraduate and graduate students, I learned that just putting students into service projects was not enough, that it was also essential to help them prepare for the experience, to monitor and support both their learning and their service performance during the experience, and to help them debrief, assimilate, and analyze what they learned after the experience. As Jim Keith of Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, says, "There's a real difference between just putting young people out into the community, which is relatively easy to do, and establishing thoughtful programs that foster real learning by young people and by those being served, which is hard to do."

A sign of the growing recognition of the importance of this reflective learning in conjunction with the service experience came in 1979 when the 10-year-old National Student Volunteer Program decided to change its name to the National Center for Service-Learning (NCSL). In touch with grassroots programs across the country, NCSL recognized that "volunteerism" and "service" alone were not enough. They saw that community service and learning are intricately interwoven. (NCSL was a major partner in the development of the service-learning concept in the 1970s and early 1980s. Since NCSL ended in the mid-80s, its considerable written resources have been distributed by the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education.) And finally, we learned that the combination of service and learning, when done well, carries even more potential for individual and community development than anyone might have imagined.

The "Transition Team. " A number of educators, community leaders, and students who saw or experienced the tremendous potential of such programs continued throughout the "me generation" of the late 1970s and the 1980s to build on the lessons of this movement and to identify the factors that can help programs be sustained over time. A small, but committed group of people also struggled quietly with the question of what worked and what did not work in the early 1970s, as we tried to identify the elements that need to be incorporated into new programs that involve young people - and adults - in their communities in meaningful ways. It became clear to those involved in these "service-learning" efforts that there are several underlying principles of good practice that are essential, but difficult for effective programs. Some of the key principles are the need for critical reflection on experience, reciprocity of learning, a careful balance of power among all parties involved, and sustained support in the hearts and budgets of the institutions and organizations where the programs are based. Through experimentation and the exchange of ideas throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, this "transition team" developed and refined several program models across the country that reflect these important principles.

As the community service movement revived in the late 1980s, the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education (NSIEE) initiated a national dialogue to articulate these essential principles for new programs that are emerging now. NSIEE involved 77 national and regional organizations, including the Cooperative Education Association, in the development of the ten basic "Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning." See the article later in this issue of the Journal of Cooperative Education.

Potential and Pitfalls of the Current Efforts.

Imagine the joy to these torchbearers of "service-learning" to see a renewed interest in community and public service begin to catch fire in the late 1980s! The repeated calls for student and youth service and for educating students for social and civic responsibility are music to the ears of those who struggled to keep service-learning alive for a decade or two. We want this surge of interest to last, to be institutionalized in education's values and practices, rather than be just another exciting, but short-lived wave.

And imagine the pain of watching many of the current programs repeat the same mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s - the paternalism, the unequal relationships between the parties involved, the lack of emphasis on integrating learning with the service experience, the lack of attention to long-term institutional support, the emphasis on charity over social justice. Most new programs were unaware of the deep well of experience about specific models and approaches that could help them avoid those predictable pitfalls. For example, a school superintendent recently pointed out the problem of inadequate community input when he remarked about college students volunteering to be tutors in his schools, "We don't want any more university students showing up on our doorstep saying 'We're here to help whether you want us or not.' We have had all of this type of help we can stand." Needless to say, I felt a sense of deja vu with that comment!

A Critical Juncture Now.

The current surge of interest in community and public service is at a critical juncture now. Waves of interest only have a few years to become institutionalized - or they recede with the tide to the next idea wave that comes along. As new programs begun in the late 1980s enter their third, fourth, or even fifth year, they are bumping into the same problems that programs in the 1970s confronted: How do you involve the residents of a community in defining the service tasks? How do you balance and respect the differing goals of agencies, students, schools, and the individuals or groups whom these three have decided to "serve"? How do you gain the institutional support required for a strong, continuing program? How can schools and colleges assess what students learn through community and public service? What types of public and institutional policies create a climate of sustained support for combining service and learning? There is a growing realization of the need - and complexity - of combining service with learning, of integrating action in the community with reflection on the experience and with analysis of the issues addressed. As Bobby Hackett, former Co-Director of the student-run Campus Outreach Opportunity League and now in business school, says, "Now I see that the service experience has to be carefully linked with the learning [process J in order to provide good service. We don't really know how to do that." (Hackett, 1988)

In addition, many of the key actors - college and university presidents, school principals, young people, faculty, students, community leaders, program coordinators, cooperative education staffs, lawmakers, foundations - are currently struggling to clarify what constitutes good practice and what their respective roles should be. College presidents are acknowledging that faculty are the key to the long-term capacity of their institutions to commit to public service and to meaningful learning in the community. Most of the presidents know the ownership and leadership for this initiative must come from within the ranks of respected faculty. In a five-year longitudinal study completed in 1989, the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education found there are two primary barriers to the full utilization of community-based learning in the 485 colleges and universities studied: (1) a lack of adequate faculty involvement and faculty skills in helping students integrate what they learn in the community and in the classroom, and (2) inadequate top-level administrative support (Migliore, 1990). A separate study completed in 1989 by Stanford University with Campus Compact's 150 schools found the same results (Stanton, 1990). And the ACE study identified the same barriers in 1968 (ACE, 1968).

At the same time, schools and colleges are struggling with how to educate students for civic participation in the midst of persistent calls for basic math and reading skills. Will schools be able to make the case for civic literacy in "back to basics" climate? Yet, we could argue that civic literacy is very basic, and, perhaps essential, for the successful future for our students and for our nation.

For educational institutions at all levels, the hard work of integrating public and community service experiences into the curriculum - when some liken the difficulty of curriculum change to that of moving a graveyard - is clearly the task at hand. As Sharon Rubin, Dean of the Fulton School of Liberal Arts at Salisbury State University, says, "The people who will make the biggest difference in the long-term viability of community service-learning programs are the faculty, administrators, and community leaders who are in a position to support the programs on a continuing basis. These key people need to be aware of the principles of good practice. They need to know what other schools and communities are doing so they don't waste precious time and money starting from scratch. Many are not aware of the resources they could draw upon."

As the students who sparked the recent interest on college campuses now graduate, they are realizing the difficulty of sustaining programs with transient student leadership. At the same time, community organizations are experiencing the challenge of incorporating large number of well-meaning, untrained, short­ term, and sometimes self-righteous young people into their work and their organizations. Some of the foundations and corporations that funded the "early" programs of the mid-1980s are moving on to other interests, and some of them see the depth of the challenges that will have to be addressed for long-term institutionalization of these programs. And lawmakers debate legislation that could have tremendous impact - or very little impact - on the future of these efforts. All these developments suggest this is a time of tremendous opportunity - or quick death - for the current service-learning movement and for the cooperative education professionals who want to be part of it.

Other Contributing Trends.

A number of changes are afoot that make this a critical point in history and a time of great opportunity for efforts to combine service and learning. I will mention only two here. First, in addition to the increasing public expectation about the role of education in teaching the next generation to be responsible, productive citizens, the undergraduate curriculum reform efforts of the past decade continue to sinuner. In 1987, Tim Stanton of Stanford University linked the two efforts when he wrote, "When effectively structured, facilitated, related to discipline-based theories and knowledge, and assessed ... service-based learning is the means to link the initiative to develop [students'] social responsibility ... with the efforts to improve undergraduate education. This evolving pedagogy of experience is key to ensuring the development of graduates who will participate in society actively, ethically and with an informed, critical habit of mind." (Stanton, 1990, pp. 175-189) Parallel to curriculum reform are the disillusionment and frustration of many faculty which are being expressed both internally and externally - concern about the increasing specialization and isolation of the disciplines and the emptiness of the publisher-perish race for tenure and promotion. And there is more public discussion about the high cost of college tuition when many graduates have difficulty with basic writing and multiplying.

Second, the movement for the use of experience-based education gained ground in academic institutions and K-12 schools in the 1980s. This "experiential education" movement includes a variety of program models and names with related and often overlapping characteristics - cooperative education, internships, service-learning, and many other forms of field-based learning. This progress is important for two reasons:

1. The methods of experiential education, regardless of the particular program model used, are the same as those needed for the effective combination of service and learning. These methods were better refined and articulated in the 1980s, thus offering a deeper body of knowledge - and greater potential for success - to the current community service advocates than was available to their counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s. There is more expertise about how to facilitate and assess the learning that is derived from experience, and there are now more courses that use field components. While the use of direct experience has always been a significant part of preparation for most professional and technical fields, more liberal arts faculty are now doing what the American Association of Colleges' 1988 report recommended - building into their courses the active engagement of students in the subject matter (AAC, 1988, pp. 28-35). In 1987, the very widely distributed "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson also acknowledged the importance of "active learning." (Chickering, 1987)
2. A number of institutions now have more experience in dealing with the institutional issues that off-campus education raises. This growing sophistication increases the likelihood that more colleges and schools will be able to institutionalize service-learning as an integral part of their missions because they now have more administrative and curricular models for supporting the use of experience-based learning than they had in the 1970s. Since 1983, for example, almost 500 institutions have participated in the National Project to Strengthen Experiential Education Within U.S. Colleges and Universities. Begun with two grants from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education to the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education, this continuing NSIEE program now offers a cadre of experienced consultants who can help educators with the internal, institutional issues raised by experienced-based learning in any form.

Most campuses and schoolhouses still have a long way to go to offer the level of institutional support needed for full integration of community and public service experiences into their curriculum. But the increased acceptance and sophistication in some schools for the use of a variety of experiential learning approaches over the past decade create a potentially promising and timely climate for the current service-learning efforts.

Importance of the Language Used

Over the past 20 years, I have participated in hundreds of debates about the language used in combining service and learning - debates that will probably rage forever. Part of the challenge in doing this book is to make sense of the diversity of terms currently used to describe programs, movements, organizations, and courses that combine service and learning in an intentional way. The debates over language are understandable. As Benjamin Whorf says, "We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native language . . . Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it." (Whorf, 1964)

Diversity of Language.

From Broad-Based, Fundamental Truths.

At different points in history, in different countries, for different age groups, and for different social issues, the same universal truth emerges. The combination of service and learning touches something very fundamental about the human spirit and its relationship to other human beings and to the surrounding culture. This combination integrates humankind's head and heart, and our unique capacity for both action and reflection. The raging debate about language is a sign that this broad-based participation continues across time and traditions. Let it rage on. It is a sign that we are on to something.

"Service-Learning. "

Service-learning as a type of program. The Southern Regional Education Board has asserted that service-learning programs emphasize the accomplishment of tasks which meet human needs in combination with conscious educational growth (SREB, 1969). They combine needed tasks in the community with intentional learning goals and with conscious reflection and critical analysis. "Tasks which meet human needs" and "needed tasks in the community" are not limited to direct services to people in need, such as through soup kitchens, tutoring, and shelters for homeless persons. These tasks can also include policy-level work on environmental issues, economic development, housing policy, international relations, or other issues that relate to the quality of human life and the social and political structures which can enhance it.

There are two factors that distinguish service-learning programs from other community service programs. First, service-learning programs explicitly include features which foster participants' learning about the larger social issues behind the human needs they are trying to help address. This includes understanding the historical, sociological, cultural, and political contexts of the need or issue being addressed. Service-learning programs may have several types of learning goals in this reflective component - intellectual, civic, ethical, moral, cross-cultural, career, personal - and different programs emphasize different types of learning.

A good service-learning program helps participants see their questions in the larger context of issues of social justice and social policy - rather than in the context of charity. A program for "charity" focuses on "doing for" other people without asking Robert Greenleaf's important question: "Are those being served better able to serve and be served by their own actions?" (Greenleaf, 1979, p. 10) Of course, responding to critical human and environmental needs is important, but doing this only in the form of direct service without a parallel concern about the societal policies or cultural habits that create these needs may actually perpetuate the underlying problems and foster further dependence. Programs that combine service and learning must assist participants to see the larger contexts behind the needs they help address.

A service-learning program might encourage participants working in a local soup kitchen, for example, to ask why people are hungry, what policies in our country do or do not contribute to this problem, and what economic, cultural and logistical factors result in hunger in a world that already knows how to grow enough food to feed everyone. Participants in a program that focuses primarily on charity, on the other hand, might serve food day after day in the same soup kitchen, but they would not be encouraged and supported to ask these types of questions. After a direct service experience related to local hunger, a young person might then be ready to explore the issue of hunger more deeply through a service ­learning opportunity in a government agency, a citizens' group, or a public policy research project. An international service-learning experience might then help the young person see the issues from a global perspective. These later steps in the service-learning process are especially useful for the skills and awareness needed for responsible global citizenship. "The community" in the definition of service-learning programs can thus refer to the local neighborhood as well as the national or international community.

Just as programs in soup kitchens might ask why people are hungry, stream clean­ups might ask what regulations do and do not keep pollutants out of our water. Literacy programs might ask why our country apparently lacks the will to teach our population to read at the same level as a majority of the other industrialized nations. To incorporate this element of probing in service-learning, Barbara Baker includes in her definition of service-learning programs the goals of helping participants "better understand the causes of social injustice . . . and to take actions to eliminate the causes and effects of social injustice." (Baker. 1983, p. 10) Michele Whitham uses the continuum of "serving to enabling to empowering" to describe the shift of emphasis from a goal of "doing for people in need - to that of supporting people in addressing their own needs. This view is very consistent with the principle of service-learning that Robert Sigmon derives from Robert Greenleaf' s concept of servant leadership (Whitham, 1986).

Service-learning programs thus build in structures - pre-service preparation, seminars, group discussions, journals, readings, debriefing, or others - that actively support participants to learn from their service experiences. Howard Berry of the Partnership for Service-Learning, for example, defines service-learning as "the union of public and community service with structured and intentional learning." (Berry, 1988, p. 3)

The second factor that distinguishes service-learning from other community service programs is an emphasis on reciprocity. Reciprocity is the exchange of both giving and receiving between the "server" and the person or group "being served." All parties in service-learning are learners and help determine what is to be learned. Both the server and those served teach, and both learn. Such a service-learning exchange avoids the traditionally paternalistic, one-way approach to service in which one person or group has resources which they share " charitably" or "voluntarily" with a person or group that lacks resources. In service-learning, those being served control the service provided; the needs of the community determine what the service tasks will be. It is this reciprocity that creates a sense of mutual responsibility and respect between individuals in the service-learning exchange, what Howard Berry calls "parity of esteem (Berry, 1988, p.3 ). " This service-learning exchange is also an important step toward a commitment of responsibility of the individual participant to the larger community. Building programs on a philosophy of reciprocal learning can thus help to avoid the ever-present pitfall of paternalism disguised under the name of service.

Of course, program names or labels do not necessarily clarify whether they fit the definition of service-learning programs as described here. Many programs labeled community service, volunteer, or youth service programs also include elements that encourage this critical reflection and reciprocity; those that do so explicitly are also service-learning programs. Many programs for cooperative education, internships, field studies, and other forms of experiential education also contain these essential elements. And of course there are some programs labeled "service-learning" that do not reflect the basic principles outlined here. See the "Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning" in this issue of the Journal of Cooperative Education for a summary of the most important elements of a service-learning program.

Service-learning as a philosophy of education. The discussion of reciprocity above takes "service-learning" to its second level of meaning as a philosophy of education - one which emphasizes active, engaged learning with the goal of social responsibility. As Tim Stanton points out, "Rather than a discrete [program] type, service learning appears to be an approach to experiential learning, an expression of values - service to others, community development, reciprocal learning - which determines the purpose, nature and process of social and educational exchange between learners and the people they serve, and between experiential education programs and the community organizations with which they work." ( Stanton, 1987, p. 4) Service-learning can also be an approach to cooperative education. Richard Couto describes this service-learning approach as "the exchange between community abilities and student needs and between community needs and student abilities ( Couto, 1987)." Service-learning is thus a philosophy of reciprocal learning, a dynamic and interactive approach which suggests mutuality in learning between the student and the community with whom he or she is actively engaged.

Linda Chisholm of the Association of Episcopal Colleges describes this approach as a pedagogy of learning through service, which "establishes a new rhythm of reflection and action, uses new teaching resources, suggests a less passive and more self-directed student who will demand a new relationship of teachers and student, and requires both faculty and student to adopt a new definition of and stance toward' course material.' The country and culture of those the student serves become the heart of the curriculum ... But the means of learning and the values implied are age-old and honored. Reflection upon experience is, after all, the most fundamental of means to human learning." (Chisholm, 1987, p. 3) This is almost identical to the pedagogy of experiential education and to the practice of cooperative education as one popular form of experiential education.

Service-learning as a philosophy of education is also described well by the literature of the "learning by participation" movement. Bruce Dollar and Val Rust describe this approach to learning as "an integrative process that includes participation in society, critical reflection on that participation, and the relation of experiences to theoretical knowledge, while maximizing the participation of all learners in decision-making affecting both the programme as a whole and their own individual activities in the programme." (Dollar & Rust, 1983, p. 26)

Thus, service-learning is a type of program that combines service and learning based on particular principles. It is also a philosophy of human growth and purpose, a social vision, and an approach to community. In this journal issue, service ­learning is most often used to refer to a type of program, but there are occasional specific uses of it at the second level.

Observations on Language. Over almost 20 years in this field, I have observed that both practitioners and programs tend to progress over time from providing direct service to asking systemic and structural questions about the reasons that service is needed. Local issues, responsibly explored, eventually arc seen in a larger global context. I have also noticed that with time, thoughtful practitioners tend to move from the language of service, voluntarist, and charity to words and concepts that are very different - words like service-learning, reciprocity, mutuality, and exchange; concepts like social justice and global awareness, and parity of esteem. As practitioners and faculty move to this new language, they progress to greater sophistication and scope in the questions they ask. Through this progress, they enable their students to move to deeper levels of understanding and learning also. More kinds of questions are acceptable. And more creative solutions to the critical issues facing our communities and our globe become possible. This is education for civic and social responsibility at its best - education for ourselves and for our students and children.

Problems With the Word "Service."

The term service-learning is not a panacea to solve the raging debate. I have tremendous problems with the word "service." It suggests an inequity between the "servers" and "those served." It suggests that the former have resources and that the latter do not. I do not like the implication that someone does something to someone else; this does not suggest the mutuality and reciprocity that make service-learning - when done well - fundamentally different from charity. It does not carry the connotation of social justice that is also an essential component of service-learning. For African Americans and people who have experienced oppression anywhere, "service" can still conjure the images of indentured servitude. And finally, I have heard " service" used many times as a self-righteous, vaguely disguised ticket to salvation for upper and middle class people who feel guilty about their access to resources. This book is not about service; it is about the particular potential for and the critical importance of the integration of service and learning.

Choice of Terms

So why is the book called Combining Service and Learning, and why is "service-learning" used in several of these articles if the word . service" is so problematic? First, because there is no other term that fits what I mean by the integration of meaningful community involvement with reflective learning and that is commonly understood by the intended audience for this book. "Reciprocal learning in the community" probably comes closer than anything, but this would be even more difficult to explain than "service-learning." So there is no perfect term. I chose this language because it seems to be the most accessible for the most people at this time. If the debate over language continues, I hope that a new public language will emerge that gives people a way to talk about this powerful combination - or that "service-learning" will gain general acceptance in a way that allows it to shed the current baggage of its component words.

Second, the "Principles of Good Practice" summarized in this journal define what is meant by good practice regardless of the language used. If these principles are respected and actively built into the design of programs and courses, then the pitfalls of the term "service" become much less worrisome.

Other Notes About Language

Other common terms related to service-learning require some discussion.
"Experiential Education" and Service-learning. The relationship of service-learning to experiential education is an intricate one. The two share both theoretical and methodological bases. Experiential education represents the methods of teaching and learning that are essential for effective service-learning and cooperative education programs. Because they draw on the basic tenets of experiential learning, all service-learning programs can thus be viewed as experiential learning programs. But there are also experiential learning programs that do not have the emphasis on community and public service that is a central part of service-learning. The previous discussion about the meaning of "service-learning" explores the concept of reciprocal learning which underlies both. Because of the importance of effective experiential education to effective service-learning, a number of chapters use the language of experiential education. In several of these, the terms could almost be used interchangeably.

"Cooperative Education" and Service-Learning. Cooperative education is a particular form of experience-based education. The theories and practices that underlie a good cooperative education program are the same as those that support any good experiential education program. Cooperative education programs may also be service-learning programs if: (1) the work done by students focuses on addressing community, human, or environmental needs from a service motivation; (2) the program has components which actively foster, monitor, and assess students' learning about the larger social or global issues behind the needs being addressed in the community; and (3) the program is designed to respond in careful balance to the goals of the host organization and the community it serves, the student, the faculty sponsor, and the school or college. See the Principles of Good Practice for other important considerations for cooperative education programs that also want to be good service-learning programs.

"Volunteerism" and "Youth Service. "Service-learning as defined here incorporates the altruism and maturational goals of volunteerism and youth service, but it take these traditions one step further. Service-learning builds on these traditions by emphasizing critical reflection on the service experience, reciprocity between the providers and acquirers of services, and learning as a significant part of the exchange for everyone involved. Many volunteer and youth service programs incorporate these elements intentionally and thoughtfully, but some do not.

"Community Service" and "Public Service." Community service and public service are often used interchangeably. While some argue that community service means an alternative to incarceration or that public service means only government service, we have opted not to try to solve this debate here.

"Agencies" and "Employers." Many use the term agency to refer to any organization that hosts students or other learners in a community setting. This is the same as "employer" in cooperative education terminology, although the student may or may not receive compensation in a service-learning program. The employer in a cooperative education that practices service-learning can be a not ­for profit organization of local or international scope, a government agency at any level, a corporate office for community affairs, or any other organization that is addressing needs from a service motivation. Some authors use" community organization," "host organization," "field sponsor," or "sponsoring organization" to refer to the settings where service-learners serve.

For More Information

If you want help with "how-to's" for developing a service-learning program or course - or just adding a service-learning dimension to your current cooperative education program - please contact the National Society for Internships and Experiential Education, 3509 Haworth Drive, Suite 207, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27609, (919) 787-3263. Begun in 1971 during the previous surge of interest in service-learning, NSIEE's comprehensive National Resource Center for Experiential and Service Learning incorporates the current materials and grassroots networks of a wide variety of national, regional, and local resource organizations and programs. CEA members enjoy a substantial discount on the full Combining Service and Learning resource book.