Week 1 Assignment: Visual Representation #1

Should High School students have compulsory service learning that is not political?

One of the latest additions to requirements for high school graduation is service learning.  As defined in the text  American Education  "Service learning is a form of civic education rather than an education for direct involvement in politics. It is based on a belief that voluntary engagement in civic organizations and community work is necessary for the maintenance of a just society." (Spring, 2018) It would appear that this practice does not emphasize the need for learning the political world, or leaves that learning for upper-income districts.  This devolution ends up being stratified by the access school districts have to local community groups, and as Spring stated in Chapter 1, that this stratification has increased, it would seem that service learning is a step down from the intent of civics education.  When schools accept that ignoring the political process is their value, they miss the opportunity to reflect and respond to the direct impacts politics has on education.

Spigelman asserts in her article that  “...while most college-level service-learning programs work to challenge popular beliefs and address systemic causes of social problems, the corresponding political discourses that support this effort reinstate a rhetoric of personal responsibility, and, in this way, are able to exploit community outreach as a conservative economic expedient.” (Spigelman, 2004) She makes a point that "political leaders make social change a personal—rather than a governmental—concern." And in applying this separation in civic education, it has resulted in a gross lack of understanding of the structure of public education, which, for now, remains in the hands of the public.  Despite the most politically minded students, many do not know the levels of local government structures, how to address leaders during public comment, or how and when to petition politicians for causes. 

Historical and Economic Factors:

• Youth Involvement Movements of the 1960s
• Defunding of Grant Programs during the 1980s
• Presidential philosophies that favors personal responsibility (1980s - present)
• Movement back to Community Based - Non-Political civic service (Present)

References

Farber, K., & Bishop, P. (2018). Service Learning in the Middle Grades: Learning by Doing and Caring. Research In Middle Level Education Online, 41(2), 1-15. doi:10.1080/19404476.2017.1415600

Spigelman, C. (2004). Politics, Rhetoric, and Service-Learning. WPA: Writing Program Administration - Journal Of The Council Of Writing Program Administrators, 28(1/2), 95-113.

Spring, J. (2016). American Education, 17th Edition. ISBN 9781138850934

The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. /sites/default/files/archives/speeches/1987/061287d.htm (accessed 11 Jul 2018)