JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION, VOL. 49

A COMMUNITY SERVICE CURRICULUM: ITS CONTRIBUTION TO IMPLEMENTING BUBER'S "I AND THOU" PHILOSOPHY

Jennifer Jane Endicott

University of Central Oklahoma

Service Learning: Defined, Rationale, Types

Community Service Learning according to Kinsley (1993) is a pedagogical method which allows students through active service to develop both cognitively and effectively through active participation in the community through active service and reflection upon that service. The National Youth Leadership Council defines Service Learning as "... a teaching/leaming method that connects meaningful community service with academic learning, personal growth and civic responsibility." Service Learning is a blending of both service and learning outcomes in such a way as to mutually support both the school learning environment and the community. The National Community Service Act of 1990 defines Service Learning as a method:

*Under which students team and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences coordinated in collaboration with the school and community.

* That is integrated into the students academic curriculum or provides structured time for a student to think, talk, or write about what the student did and saw during the actual service activity.

* That provides students with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real life situations in their own communities.

* That enhances what is taught in school by extending student learning beyond the classroom and into the community and helps to foster the development of a sense of caring for others. Fertman (1994) defines Service Learning as a structured, thoughtful method where participants learn and develop through organized service projects that are deliberately designed to link service to academic learning. Service learning involves children in real life situations which benefit the individual as well as the community.

The rationale for utilizing a Service Learning curriculum allows for the recognition and respect of diversity to emerge within the learning environment. Second, it builds community through utilizing the diversity of talents within the learning environment. Third, it taps the multiple intelligences of the learners and allows for the expression of each of these intelligences. Fourth, real world skills and competencies can be developed, thus enabling students to build fife skills. Fifth, it allows for an integrated multi-cultural perspective to develop within the curriculum.

Additionally, A Source Book on Integrating Youth Service into the School Curriculum indicates specific benefits for students: 1) Self Esteem: students earn a sense of empowerment by engaging in community service where they are needed, valued and respected. 2) Citizenship: students learn that citizenship requires an actively engaged community life. 3) Academic skills: students' desire to team is heightened by their experience in community service. They learn to connect the classroom experience with life in the community. Students learn the relevance of subject matter from science and mathematics to the social sciences and humanities. Students reflect on important moral and ethical issues. 4) Career Education: students directly experience the world of work.

Benne states the issue of the need for community building as essential to the future of humankind:

The most hopeful way through and beyond the desert of collectively, social fragmentation, and impending self-inflicted doom in which we now wander is for persons thirsting for a fuller life to unite in building community within contemporary collectivities and between and among contemporary fragmentations. (p. 66)

How the curriculum can prepare students for a common citizenship while nurturing group cultures, values, and institutional participation is best addressed through Service Learning.

There are three Service Learning Models which are currently operating under the term Service Learning.

1. COMMUNITY SERVICE THROUGH DIRECT VOLUNTARISM

*After school activities: usually community programs

* School credit for a specific course in which a required curriculum is not related to the course or to the after school activities/academic requirements involved

* Assessments are usually informal and do not meet the required curriculum assessment standards

2. COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING

* Usually single unit preparation

* Curriculum developed in addition to the required curriculum

* Academic requirements are usually met through separate subject approaches

* Assessments are formal, but do not necessarily meet the required curriculum

* Stated beliefs of Service Learning require academic/service/reflection, but actual implementation usually does not meet the requirements

3. LIFE-SKILLS COMMUNITY SERVICE

* Developed through an integrated curricular approach

* Identified community needs and life skills

* Thematic in nature

* Developed through the required curriculum

* Assessments are formal/multiple and evaluated as a part of a required curriculum

* Thinking reflectively and Thinking Analytically

* Real-world experiential: De-mystifies methodologies through actual experiential participation in the community.

A selection of one or a merging of these three models is dependent upon the local leadership, belief systems, and resources within the school and the community.

Philosophical Perspectives for Service Learning

In Varlotta's (1997) discussion of the philosophical basis for Service Learning Barber's (1984) integrated philosophical approach based upon liberalism, with its emphasis on individual freedom, and communitarianism (the common good) and Dewey's (1916) experiential learning with his theory of democracy, community, and public service emerge as the most widely cited authorities. "In the first place, the school must itself be a community" (Dewey, 1916, p. 358). Although differences appear in the discussion, there is a commonality based upon "consensual communities, notions of justice, a consensus approach, and the rational, unified self' (Varlotta, 1997, p. 454). Varlotta posits Service Learning be expanded from a narrow consensus community, "those born out of similarity, justice, and the common good," to "communities of difference," to those that favor contestation, dialectical relationships and multiple realities" (Varlotta, 1997, p. 455), In support of this, William Tiemey's "communities of difference" (Varlotta, 1997, p. 455) emerges as one of the components of Varlotta's discussion. This paper proposes that there is a more personal philosophical. basis for Service Learning which contrubutes to Martin Buber's "I and Thou" philosophy which is critical to the emergence of community.

Service Learning and Buber's "I and Thou" Philosophy

Each individual is unique in his or her self-image and is to be respected for his or her own uniqueness. In order to meet and embrace this self within a positive social climate, a dialogue between individuals must be created. Martin Buber saw man as a whole, unique being and that the educated person is one "whose life is characterized by existential decision making" (Nash, 1968, p. 435). Buber created a model of an educated person whose life is one of autonomous decision making through real experiences and specific situations. "Vital to Buber's ethics is the concept of responsibility, viewed in terms of one's response to another, Thus, the dialogue or the sphere of the interhuman becomes a central focus of concern" (Nash, 1968, p. 435).

Buber's "I and Thou" philosophy demonstrates a keen understanding of the nature of human communication with all of its misunderstandings due to experiential differences between senders and receivers of messages (Nash, 1968). These differences in experiential points of reference affect the acceptance and respect of self within the changing social dynamic. This existentialist belief is established not through rigid codes, though a respect for

principles and traditions are useful but through an active interaction between individuals in the real world. In his work "Ich and Du," published in 1923 and in English in 1937, it was critical that one understands that our relationship with God emerges through our experiences in the concrete world with man, and that freedom is found through our seeking authentic encounters with others (Nash, 1969). Thus, Buber maintained that many relationships with other people merely consist of "talking past" or "talking at" someone, whereas, true acceptance and understanding of another person's perspective are established through a dialogue which emerges through an "I and Thou" relationship, as opposed to the "I-It" relationship, which is the way people relate to inanimate objects. The dialogue can only be created through responsible interpersonal relationships based upon respect and acceptance. The dialogue demands authenticity and honesty and is destroyed by deception and pretense.

The respect for one another emerges as crucial to the "I/Thou" dialogue as shared from Buber's "Elements of the Interhuman," the William Alanson White Memorial Lectures given in the spring of 1957 in Washington, D.C. at the School of Psychiatry(translation by Ronald Cregor Smith, in The Knowledge (1965). Buber states "The chief presupposition for the rise of genuine dialogue is that each should regard his partner as the very one he is. I become aware of him, aware that he is different, essentially different from myself in the definite, unique way which is peculiar to him, and I accept whom I thus see, so that in full earnestness I can direct what I say to him as the person he is." (Nash, 1968, p. 442).

In application of Buber's philosophy to the educational environment, the importance of dialogue, responsibility, and community in each individual emerges. The learner assumes the role of active participant in his or her own education and is an active and divergent thinker. In Buber's 1925 address in Heidelberg to the Third International Educational Conference he espoused the view of the person as one of living responsibly, The opportunity for responsibility emerges in the Service Leaning curriculum through the identifying problems, encountering them, and seeking solutions. Likewise, the teacher becomes a model of understanding and acceptance and interacts with the leaner as they share with each other and draw strength from one another and become mutual learners. In Buber's "Teaching and Deed," translated by 0. Marx in Israel and the World (1948), he encourages the relationship between teacher and learner as one of interaction and mutual respect and learning and to be able to transform learning and belief into action. The child is given the opportunity to explore, yet encounters the teacher's values. The classroom becomes one of participation with a variety of methods and approaches varied to meet the individual needs of the students. The classroom management is inclusive within a democratic environment. The curriculum has no definite rules, but is based upon the needs of the teacher and learner with an emphasis on utilizing the total environment, This theme of community and personal responsibility merge together in this kind of classroom environment. Buber's free man is "one who voluntarily comes together with others in community, who attains the level of being able to speak as an authentic We" (Nash, 1968, p.451). Through the Service Learning curriculum the individual has an opportunity to explore his or her own personal seeking of freedom.

Buber also contends in the 1957 White Memorial Lectures that the modem world believes that there is nothing, including man, which cannot be analyzed, reduced, or dissected into its smallest components, thus destroying the mystery between man and man. He is not speaking against analytical methodology in the sense of learning about man, but in the sense that we cannot make man into a generic formula and have no regard for his wholeness, unity and uniqueness. Children understand and seek their own uniqueness and when not given opportunities to explore their uniqueness within a positive educational environment, they will explore alternative avenues. Service Learning provides an opportunity in our lockstep form of education for the child to explore, reflect and make decisions within an environment which encourages the development of self. Self-development through Service Learning in a community context provides the individual with the freedom from self, yet, not losing self and one's ability to relate with others. In Buber's Paths in Utopia, he painstakingly points out that "A real community need not consist of people who are perpetually together; but it must consist of people who, precisely because they are comrades, have mutual access to one another and are ready for one another "(Buber, 1996 p. 145). Although Buber believed that our culture with its complex diversity would not be best served by one educational model Service Learning may serve as one of the vehicles through which Buber's model may be applied as it provides opportunities for dialogue, Relationships, and community. After all, "Education is relation" (Noddings, 1995, p. 65).

REFERENCES

Barber, B. (1984). Strong democracy. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.

Benne, K.D. (1990). The task of post-contemporary education: Essays in behalf of a human future. New York: Teachers College Press.

Buber, M. (1996). Paths in utopia. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Cairn, W.R. & Coble, T. (1993). Learning by giving: The K-8 service-leamine curriculum guide. Roseville, MN: National Youth Leadership Council.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.

Fertman, C. (1994). Service learning for all students #375. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

Nash, P. (1968). Models of man. Malabar, FL: Kreiger Publishing.

Noddings, N. (1995). Philosophy of education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Varlotta, L. (1997). Confronting consensus: Investigating the philosophies that have informed service-learning's communities. Educational theory 47(4), 453-476.