David M. Donahue

Learning With and Learning From: Reciprocity in Service Learning in Teacher Education

Service learning aims to promote academic learning and meet community needs. When students interview elderly residents in a nursing home about their experiences during World War II, they gain eyewitness historical information and provide company to persons who otherwise may have few visitors. Such situations are designed to be “win-win.’’ Students who serve gain; those served gain. On the surface, this would seem to be a reciprocal relationship, each party meeting another’s needs. But is it really? Are those who receive service the equals of those who serve, particularly in the eyes of those giving service? How do power differentials between participants in service learning relationships influence service and learning? And what are the implications of such inequality (real or perceived) for the learning of those who serve? As Varlotta (1997) points out, traditional service learning theory and practice have limited the ways in which many teachers and students think about and implement service learning. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, these service learning projects often suppress diversity and conflict in favor of consensus. They simplify issues of power by invoking a definition of reciprocity among learners and teachers as well as service recipients and service providers where power is seen as something to be shared by those who have it by position—teachers and providers—with those who do not. In such scenarios, those with power intend their service learning projects, at some point, to result in some redistribution, if not equalization, of power. Unfortunately, in reality the results are too often static and unequal relationships where service providers and recipients can clearly be identified in roles that do not change. Power flows one way, from those giving to those receiving; the givers of power attempt to change the values and actions of the receivers of power, to make the receivers more like themselves.

Service Learning as a Pedagogy of Whiteness

In this article we employ whiteness as a conceptual framework to contextualize how faculty develop and implement, and consequently how students experience, service learning. A vignette that illustrates the pervasiveness of whiteness in service learning is followed by an analysis that details how whiteness frames the teaching and learning in this service learning experience. Through this example and analysis, we seek to increase instructors’ capacity and confidence to interrupt the patterns and privileges of whiteness that too often are normalized in service learning.

Service-Learning for Preservice Teachers: Ethical Dilemmas for Practice.

Abstract Increasingly in the United States, service–learning is being used to educate preservice teachers. Service varies greatly in its ethical foundation, however, and service–learning presents new teachers with a variety of dilemmas revealing the moral and political nature of teaching and service. This article presents one case of four preservice teachers writing curriculum as a service to a community agency hoping to promote service geared toward social justice among high school students. The case highlights ethical dilemmas faced by teachers in the process and illustrates the potential of service–learning to educate teachers for the moral imperative of their profession.

Charity Basket or Revolution: Beliefs, Experiences, and Context in Preservice Teachers' Service Learning

Abstract Given what one observer calls the “vast disparity of definitions that faculty can bring to service learning—from what is basically the charity basket approach to the revolutionary,” service learning can vary tremendously, from reading to elderly residents of a nursing home to organizing a boycott of a sneaker company. With such diversity before teachers, what influences them in the way they design service learning? How do preservice teachers, for whom so many ideas about teaching are emerging, make such choices? Two case studies suggest that preservice teachers’ beliefs, experiences, and the context where they teach play an important role related to if and how they use service learning. Beliefs and experiences are especially important because, although service learning is often presented as supporting apolitical values—empowerment and responsibility, for example—for which broad consensus exists, such values are also ambiguous and open to interpretation. Teacher educators and advocates of service learning need to acknowledge the ambiguous political nature of service and service learning. By doing so, they have an opportunity to make the political context of teaching explicit for preservice teachers. Such education in service learning for new teachers goes beyond “training” in the logistical and technical details of implementing a new pedagogy to thoughtful reflection on the value-laden act of teaching.

Learning from Harvey Milk: The Limits and Opportunities of One Hero to Teach about LGBTQ People and Issues.

Highlighting a hero is a common response to including the history of marginalized people in the curriculum. Harvey Milk is becoming that hero as social studies curriculum responds to calls for including LGBTQ people. By studying Milk, what might young people learn about LGBTQ people, issues, and movements? What opportunities and limitations exist for moving beyond one hero and learning about justice for LGBTQ people? How might social studies teachers address limitations and capitalize on opportunities in such curriculum? I analyze how Milk is presented in eight published lesson plans ranging from elementary school to adult education, two nonfiction books, and one online script for a school assembly. These materials carry limitations: reinforcing heteronormativity, ignoring homophobia, perpetuating the “great man” notion of history, and obscuring long-term struggle by other individuals and coalitions of diverse groups working for change. In the hands of social studies teachers who are aware of these limitations and can move beyond them, they also present opportunities to explore issues like marriage equality, coming out, bullying, and tools for political and social change.

Reggio‐inspired professional development in a diverse urban public school: cases of what is possible

Reggio‐inspired professional development for teachers and instruction for children is possible in racially, linguistically, and economically diverse urban public schools lacking the financial resources available at other preschools typically using Reggio programs in the United States. These case studies of two teachers illustrate what is possible when teachers learn about documentation as a process of making meaning with children rather than a product to prove effective instruction. Teachers expand their ability to observe, listen, and collaborate with each other, parents, and children. They see themselves as researchers, children as capable, and the environment as a third teacher.

Connecting Classrooms and Communities Through Chicano Mural Art

Teacher educators can use community art and arts learning strategies to help secondary preservice teachers gain insight into disciplinary understanding that is important to the humanities and relevant to the communities in which they teach. Such insight can then inform teachers’ rationales for why and how they teach principles of social justice.