A lot of people ask me how I got into service learning.  Not a lot of people in my family had advanced degrees, but they all had an abiding love of learning and a deep respect for education.  Why?  Because they thought it was a great way to bring about change in the world and in ourselves.  Contrary to the popular image of an ivory tower removed from the “real world,” I was taught to see higher education as a way to get involved in making the world a little more decent, and as a way to make myself more aware and more understanding of other people.

But then I spent a lot of years doing highly specialized academic work.  I lost the forest for the trees.  In my case, the trees were 18th century German manuscripts, but it could be anything.   I got really good at a very technical sort of thinking and writing, but I couldn’t avoid the bigger questions: Why bother?   What does this work contribute to the world?  Does it really matter to anyone?  Does it make any difference?

Then something happened.  I got to teach a course in my discipline which required the students to make a substantial commitment to service learning.  All of a sudden, I remembered why I fell in love with education in the first place.  At the same time my students were reading great philosophical works, they were also tutoring public school children, conversing with elderly patients in nursing homes, answering suicide hotlines, serving meals in homeless shelters, and helping prisoners work toward their GEDs.   All the “real world” stuff made our class discussions come to life.  The students’ written work jumped off the page.   It was refreshing to see Aristotle’s analysis of the virtues exemplified in a prison and the Enlightenment concept of freedom vigorously challenged by a student working with severely retarded adults.

All of a sudden, everything mattered more.  Intellectual work did make a difference.   It helped my students define their goals, their identities and their values.  It deepened their understanding of other people and gave them real skills for dealing with the real world.  It also (surprise!) made them love Plato and Locke more than if they were just words on a page.

I love the life of the mind, but I got into this line of work because it reminds me why education matters in the real world.

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