Service Learning Values

In some ways, service learning should be valued. You can get a lot out of working with the community and volunteering for people. If you would just like to be simple and straightforward, it’s the feeling that you get inside for helping other people out. Giving people an extra helping hand when they need it is such a big deal and can go a long way, especially when you volunteer for long periods of time. Plus, they appreciate it whether they actually say it or not. Volunteering is a great thing in any community and more people should get involved. If each person did one volunteer or service learning work with the school this world could have potential to be such a better place physically and each person would feel so much better about themselves. Service learning is a good idea for some college courses but I don’t think they should be incorporated into all of them. It is a very good opportunity to learn and grow into you while helping others but when the service learning is placed into a general English class, they don’t fit together very well. I would suggest placing it into a Social Work class or maybe just a different general class all together. Say for instance, if service learning were incorporated into more college courses then there would be more volunteer workers throughout communities and then the world would be a better place so in the end, it is important to have them around in college but more towards classes that involve volunteer work. It is sort of like a chain reaction where you start off with a small classroom setting of service learners and if those people learn to like volunteer work then they will continue on. I know, personally, that I wouldn’t have volunteered if it wasn’t for this class but afterwards I will probably continue to volunteer. On a different note, this service learning helps a lot when it comes to writing resumes because I don’t have much to start with. To conclude, I don’t think service learning should be in all college courses but I think they should be in some.

Communication Skills

During my service-learning experience I feel like my communication skills have changed because I’ve had to communicate with a range of people. There were many adults who were authority figures to the kids as well as myself where I had to figure out when the appropriate times were to be professional with them and then when it was okay to be more comfortable, as if they were my friends. I have had other jobs before but not where I would have to watch for kids standing around me all the time because kids should not listen to exactly what you’re saying all of the time. I have learned more about becoming comfortable with people when you first meet because there were many other volunteers who would come and go throughout the time that I volunteered. I found myself being able to start conversation a lot easier also. I think a lot of the reason why was because I became more comfortable with the location. Another reason for why I believe my communication skills have changed is because I haven’t had to much experience with young kids and when I volunteered at Head Start I got to spend a lot of time interacting with the kids. When you work with kids you need to have another voice and also be very patient. At first it was hard to understand this and figure out how to deal with it. There was also the situation of how to deal with the children who would goof around or not pay attention and cause trouble for the rest of the children. As an adult figure to them, you could not start yelling because then the kids would copy you and not understand what they’re doing wrong. Instead, you have to stay calm and figure out the problem and also try to solve the problem right there so it doesn’t happen again. My communication skills have been changed a lot because of all the different range of people that I volunteered with.
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Pros and Cons of Service Learning Locations

I think service learning is something that everyone should experience sometime in his or her life, even if it’s only once. There are many different reasons that people may or may not want to incorporate service learning into a college course. Should college classes and professors require a person to do service learning especially when it’s a class like English where the two don’t correspond too much together?
One argument for having service learning in college courses would be that it’s an excellent way to introduce students into volunteer work and guiding them on the way. Most students don’t know much about volunteering and even if they have an idea, they aren’t sure where to start looking. Another argument for service learning would be that when students write papers their topics and main ideas can be on something that’s from their location with first hand experience. Lastly, service learning looks excellent on any resume when you’re trying to find a job and may influence students to do more volunteer work if they want their resume to look outstanding. It could actually be the breaker between choosing you over another person for the job.
A major argument for not including service learning into college courses is that it doesn’t have much to do with the actual course itself, especially an English class. English courses are trying to help students learn how to enhance their writing and a service learning location doesn’t seem to work into that very well. Another argument against service learning is that it can be tough to find a location that’s within a reasonable distance from where the student lives. Most students don’t have cars during school or even if they do it’s pretty expensive for gas, which means they would have to walk. As a final point, a lot of students are very busy as it is and to add in extra time to walk there and do the volunteer work only adds more stress to their life.
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