Coming into the Faculty Fellows group this year I had not heard the terms critical theory, critical reflection, or critical service-learning. Even though I had been incorporating service-learning projects into my courses for ten years, these phrases were foreign to me. The type of service-learning I had been implementing in my class would be classified by Mitchell (2008) as “traditional” service-learning. The focus of my projects was on applying course concepts and providing an experiential learning opportunity for my students while providing a service to the community without providing the knowledge of social issues that critical service-learning requires.
During our first discussions of critical service-learning and critical theory I was completely lost. As an academic who is used to be looked at as the expert, this was an uneasy and unwelcomed feeling. However, since I am a learner, I was a bit energized. I knew the downsides of service-learning. Of the harm that can be inflicted when someone is trying to do good. And I knew that I did not want any of my current or future service-learning projects to fit into that category. So, I listened intently as my colleagues discussed the idea of critical service-learning. The idea of creating service-learning projects that help students understand power structures and develop attitudes and action plans that might assist in changing those power structures (Mitchell, 2008) was intriguing to me. So, I agreed without knowing how in the world I could make this happen.
Our group first decided that we needed to learn more about critical service-learning and critical reflection. That produced a large sigh of relief for me as I knew that is where I needed to start. I needed time to read, reflect, and digest what all of this meant. After reading several articles about critical service-learning and critical reflection I concluded that critical service-learning and critical reflection go hand-in-hand. Critical reflection seemed to me to be our goal – to get students to actively and carefully consider/challenge their own beliefs and to recognize/articulate systemic issues. To me, the idea behind critical reflection was to deepen knowledge, which is what I felt we wanted to achieve by participating in critical service-learning. However, I knew I was far away from that goal and felt completely “underprepared” to implement it. I had doubts about whether my current or future service-learning projects could meet the goal of critical service-learning because of my lack of knowledge and because I felt like a beginner. I knew that I had work to do first. I thought that, to have my students participate in critical reflection and critical service-learning, I had to start by understanding the population to which my students would be exposed (which was a new population for me), then examine/identify my own assumptions about the population, to figure out how to frame the experience so that students would be able to explore the strengths of the community while helping the facility provide a service to the community. For example, Mitchell (2008) suggests that “faculty should select readings and tailor lectures to prepare students for their experiences and to see them through educative frames—for example, asset-based assessments of communities or critical perspectives addressing systemic causes rather than only individual failings for community problems”. I felt like I had no idea where to find those readings and/or how to include those concepts in my lectures/classes.
With the help of my Faculty Fellows group, I began to explore my own identities and assumptions. Working through a series of reflection prompts I realized that I have bias and bring that into the classroom, although I try to be objective. I have experienced very little discrimination and have always had the opportunity to succeed. Therefore, I am not sure that I can fully empathize with those who have been marginalized. I am sure that I allow or even espouse language in my classroom that is not always fair to others or that may paint an inaccurate picture of cultural identities that are unlike my own, even though I don’t want that to happen. I try to create a physically, intellectually, socio-emotionally, and culturally safe and inclusive learning community in my classes, but have not developed any specific practices or processes to ensure this happens. I also realized that I spend almost no time seeking to acquire accurate information about the cultural histories and community practice of my students and little to no time talking about the cultural identities of the community we serve. If I was going to be involved in critical service-learning, would I need to make a change? If so, how would I do that?
Fortunately, for me, I had a cadre of faculty to help me work through some of my questions and uneasiness. We started by using preexisting questionnaires (Bringle, Phillips, & Hudson, 2004) to discuss bias, cultural identity, and our attitudes toward social justice. I was reminded of the power and importance of language and how one’s own perspective (background/experiences) influences meaning and bias. I was reminded of how my students come from a variety of backgrounds and that they would perhaps be unaware of their biases. I also knew that they would not expect to be learning about bias, culture, and social justice in my particular course. I began again to feel unprepared to teach these concepts in my class. At that point, I knew that I would never be able to transform my community service project into critical service-learning after one semester and maybe not even after one year. But I also felt a little more empowered because I felt that I had a plan. I knew there were tools available to me to begin approaching critical service-learning and critical reflection and with ideas about how to implement them in my classes I could at least start moving forward.
This experience with ICC Faculty Fellows has truly been a learning experience for me. Phrases like “critical service-learning” and “approaching critical service-learning” were totally unknown to me before this. While I have learned a lot during this time, and am grateful for the patience, guidance and support of my colleagues, I still feel like I have a long way to go! It has been a great relief to me to discover that I may never even get there - and that is OK.
Where do I go from here is a great question. I know that a semester is absolutely not enough time to involve my students in critical service-learning. I feel the pressure to spend the time in the course on content, which is completely unrelated to social justice, and using the project to apply that course content. This leaves very little time for even “approaching critical service-learning”. I wonder if critical service-learning can be accomplished outside of sociology or social justice courses? Do I even try? Even though I know more than ever before, am I qualified to do this? I know that I want my students to become more socially aware, as bias affects relationships and decisions no matter the field of study. And I certainly don’t want to ignore what I have learned. So, my aim will be to take this in small steps. I intend to find ways to insert pieces of what I have learned about positionality, social justice, and critical service-learning into my project. I wish I could say I had a solid plan for where to start. But I cannot. I can begin by formulating a plan.
My first step may be to find ways to “open the eyes” of my students to their own bias, positionality and use of language using some of the document we used in our ICC FF project and other techniques learned at the ICC Summit in February. My service-learning project requires my students to work with an area of the city in a low socioeconomic area. On the surface the kids/customers don’t seem that different from me or my students. Their challenges may be hidden to me and my students. So, the next step might be to identify the inequities in the GP area and have a discussion about these in class. I still feel unqualified to “rightly” identify the inequities and systemic issues from which they arise, so I need to look for other colleagues on campus who might help me develop exercises/lessons to achieve these aims. Perhaps requiring more “research” on the front end for my students to get to know the “public” at the park might also be helpful. I don’t really have the answer right now. But I do resolve to continue my search and my journey of approaching critical service-learning, even though I may never get there.