Service-Learning in Asia: Curricular Models and Practices

7 - Intercultural Service-learning and Multicultural Symbiosis

Service-learning as a pedagogy brings students to the community not only to serve, but also to learn as they work within the limits of capabilities and resources with locals (Oracion 2002, OSL 2006). As a form of experiential learning, it helps students value their education and discover their potential to be change agents while still in school. It offers them opportunities to become creative participants in the learning process because of the relative independence they have from their teachers when they are entrusted to a community or agency (McCarthy 2007b, 8). They are not in constant contact with their teachers for guidance or immediate answers to questions. Their community exposure brings them to a different world of learning experiences where there are no formalities, examinations, comfortable chairs, and tables at which they can write and conduct experiments. Beyond the walls of the classroom and the gates of the schools are realities that may be totally new to students, especially those who live in gated communities (i.e., expensive subdivisions and condominiums) and in the comfort of their families (Oracion 2006). The opening of physical barriers through service-learning puts students in different social and cultural milieus where they must adapt in order to effectively experience the different and varied worlds of human struggle and existence. McCarthy (2007b, 13) suggests that service-learning moves students out of their “familiar comfort zones” and poses “new challenges, but also new successes for them.” It is presumed that any student will initially experience cultural shock and how they regard it depends on their inherent or learned ability to overcome it, in either a painful or easy way. It is expected that students’ personal growth, self-fulfillment, and satisfaction will be enhanced by the end of their service-learning involvement (OSL 2006, 9). Intercultural Service-learning and Multicultural Symbiosis Enrique G. Oracion 7 Enrique G. Oracion 92 For international students or those who come to serve and learn in a foreign host country, being part of an intercultural service-learning program not only introduces them to a community where they are in a close encounter with another culture, it also puts them into intimate contact with students from diverse and contrasting cultural backgrounds (McCarthy 2007a). Therefore, students must engage with two levels of cultural adjustments in order to meaningfully achieve their goals in joining the program; that is, they must adjust to their host communities and fellow students. They must strive to overcome their ethnocentricity and begin to comprehend the reality of living in the host community from the perspective of locals, a major step to achieving cultural relativity (Benderly et al. 1977, 15). Adjusting to an unfamiliar culture, or not, is a measure of their flexibility, for now and perhaps in the future. Students can begin to see their own cultures “from different angles and stop taking them for granted” and “begin to understand that cultural differences are products of their own environment and conditions, their existence relative to their context” (Nishio 2007, 26). Multicultural Symbiosis Ecologically, symbiosis refers to a mutually beneficial relationship among organisms (Scaff 1982, 73). When applied to human interaction amidst cultural diversity, the concept of multicultural symbiosis implies how the coming together of people with diverse cultural backgrounds offers relative benefits to all involved. It reflects the idea that in cultural diversity each person has something to contribute to human survival, which is similar to biological diversity (Milton 1996, 140). In contrast to the competition and conflict that often erupt when two or more groups exploit the same habitat, multicultural symbiosis instead transforms these social processes into driving forces for promoting harmonious working relationships or mutual dependence—an argument that can be traced back to systems theory (Duke 1983, 347). It is by appreciating and learning from differences that common goals and cooperation may be realized (Aronson 1997, 342). Multicultural symbiosis, or kyosei in Japanese (i.e., “living together”), served as the theme of the International Service-Learning Model Program (ISLMP) because of the cultural mix of its participants (McCarthy 2007a, 33; Nishio 2007, 26). This was initiated by the International Christian University (ICU) through a grant from the Ministry of Education of Japan and participated in by six schools that are members of the Service-Learning Asia Network (SLAN), which was organized in 2004. These schools were ICU (Japan), Silliman University (Philippines), Lady Doak College (India), Chung Chi College, the Intercultural Service-learning and Multicultural...