Service-Learning in Asia: Curricular Models and Practices

1 - Bridging Classrooms to Communities in Service-learning Programs

One of the key purposes of education is to prepare citizens to live good lives in their communities. Education in schools, colleges, and universities is generally conducted in classrooms where learners’ great minds are enclosed by four walls and confined by the contents of textbooks, instructors’ mindsets, and classroom regulations. When education provides an opportunity for learners to link classroom experience to the world in various contexts, their learning can be more meaningful for them and useful for others. Since experience is the basis of learning whereby knowledge is created by a combination process of grasping and transforming experience (Kolb 1984, 41), higher education must teach students how to learn beyond the classroom (Berry 1990). Service-learning, the pedagogy of experiential learning that combines service and learning in a community setting, can be a solution. This chapter explores the concept of service-learning and its development in the West and in Thailand. The experience of integrating service-learning as a co-curricular activity at Assumption University in Thailand is provided as an example of how service-learning is carried out and how it affects learners, teachers, and educational institutions. Definition of Service-learning Service-learning allows students to provide services to others, usually in less advantaged communities, and to participate in community development. Through community service, students provide appropriate services to alleviate societal problems, poverty, and pain. Service-learning empowers individuals and the community and simultaneously “determines the purpose, nature and process of social and educational exchange between learners (students as service providers) and the people they serve” (Stanton 1990, 67). Rhoads Bridging Classrooms to Communities in Service-learning Programs Charn Mayot 1 Charn Mayot 18 comments that service-learning “has a direct connection to academic mission” (1998, 277–297). Service-learning helps students develop through thoughtful, systematic, and loosely structured academic-based services. It is an educational tool used to achieve the desired results of multiple educational goals, such as building academic skills and values (Indiana Department of Service Learning Education 1998). Stephen Brookfield (1983, 16) summarizes the concept of service-learning in two contrasting senses: (1) learning undertaken by students in which they are given an opportunity to have a “direct encounter with the phenomena being studied rather than merely thinking about the encounter, or only considering the possibility of doing something about it” (Borzak 1981, 9, as cited in Brookfield 1983, 16) and (2) “education that occurs as a direct participation in the events of [everyday] life” (Houle 1980, 221, as cited in Brookfield 1983, 16). Service-learning bridges theory and practice. Social exposure through service-learning gives learners an opportunity to live and participate in community activities and thereby broaden their world views, understand different cultures, and learn about the community’s way of life. Martin P. Komolmas, president emeritus of Assumption University, considers experiential learning equally important to learning that takes place inside the classroom. Nevertheless, service-learning is not expected to replace but to enhance and supplement traditional modes of learning. Development of Service-learning The history of service-learning can be traced back to the early formation of higher education in the United States. Woodrow Wilson (1902), former president of Princeton University, made a comment that “it is not learning but the spirit of service that will give a college a place in the annals of the nation” (Woodrow 1902, 270). This same idea was echoed at the time of the founding of Harvard College in 1963 when it was noted that higher education should be “preparing citizens for active involvement in community life” (Smith 1994, 55, as cited in Hunch 1998, 5). Although the term “service-learning” was not coined until 1967, when Sigmon and William Ramsey introduced it at the Regional Education Board, the spirit was clearly embodied in higher education’s early foundation. Since the early 1970s, attempts were made to establish a servicelearning network and integrate service-learning into the syllabi of colleges and universities. These endeavors met with little success until 1985 when Campus Compact, an organization of college and university presidents, agreed to encourage and support academically based community service at Bridging Classrooms to Communities in Service-learning Programs 19 their institutions. During this period, the service-learning movement was strengthened by the Campus Out-Reach Opportunity League (COOL), a group of recent college graduates who were willing to support studentinitiated service projects through a program titled COOL’s Critical Elements of Thoughtful Community Service...