Thankful for: The Way Service-Learning Courses Enhance Understanding and Deepen Learning

For a full decade, and for five years through cooperation with West Virginia University, Amizade has been offering global service-learning courses around the world. The courses' key features are rigorous academics, intercultural immersion and exchange, community-driven service, reflective inquiry, and exploration of global citizenship. Importantly, all of the courses and instructors are approved through a thorough process developed in cooperation with WVU, to ensure that every course offered through the partnership meets the standards of a Research 1 University in the United States. Amizade's many years of experience in this area have provided it with the opportunity to offer global service-learning professional development conferences and to present on the topic at universities and events as diverse as Bucknell University, Cornell University, Winthrop University, the conferences of The American Political Science Association, The International Service-Learning Research Organization, and Vermont Campus Compact.   What is perhaps most interesting, about Amizade-WVU global service-learning courses, however, is how they enhance student learning.

Here in Bolivia, on one of our semester programs that integrate study of international development with history, language, and local service placements, one of my students recently suggested that what she most hoped to communicate about her experience was - she searched for the phrase ..... its complexity. The other students agreed: it's one thing to study international development and Latin American History on campus. In the safety of their campus classrooms and individual experiences, students can easily embrace or reject the a-new-world-is-possible musings of Jeffrey Sachs or development-aid-is-dead diatribes of William Easterly. But when those arguments are considered in light of the stark reality of living and working in a developing country - their certainties disappear in the face of continuously challenging and contradictory information.

Students have the opportunity - and deep challenge - to understand theoretical arguments in the context of inescapable empirical realities. It leaves them with truths that are in many ways less certain, less comfortable, and far more realistic. In addition to providing this challenging academic experience, global service-learning courses provide students with a clear and unmistakable opportunity to make a difference. Amizade-WVU programs also dispel the myth that our knowledge, our actions, and our ethics are held in separable spheres. Global service-learning demonstrates the inextricably intertwined nature of what we do, what we believe, and how we understand the world.

I'm thankful for the challenges and deep understanding global service-learning catalyzes in students and faculty. For a brief, volunteer-produced video on our service-learning semesters, click below.