1. Learning with and Learning from: Reciprocity in Service Learning in Teacher Education
- Author
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Donahue, David M., Bowyer, Jane, and Rosenberg, Dana
- Abstract
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? In this article, the authors describe a service learning project wherein they attempted to blur the lines between those serving and those being served, and between those teaching and those learning. The Learning With Adolescents, Learning From Adolescents project, which they began in the fall of 2000, is part of an adolescent development class in the teacher education program at Mills College and the "Introduction to Teaching and Learning" class at West Side High School's Teaching and Learning Academy. The project brought together graduate students seeking secondary school teaching credentials with 10th graders enrolled in a special program preparing young people for careers in education. The goals for teacher education students were to learn with adolescents about issues central to the profession of teaching, to question assumptions about adolescents, to perceive teaching and learning through the eyes of adolescents, and to view adolescents as sources of information for teachers. The goals for the high school students were parallel, with an emphasis on learning about teaching from teachers and challenging stereotypes about teachers. (Contains 2 notes.)
- Published
- 2003
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