Service learning and high school diploma Research Paper

Service learning and high school diploma - Research Paper Example Service learning and high school diploma Service learning wouldn’t benefit the students’ education. Indeed, many students would be unable to volunteer in their field. This negates any argument that service learning would help the students’ education†. The above argument is also illogical. The aim of education is to prepare the children to meet all sorts of life challenges effectively in future. In other words, it is ridiculous to argue that a science student should get practical experiences only in science topics. It should be noted that for conducting a successful future personal, professional and social life, he should acquire all sorts of knowledge even if he is specifically studying the science or arts during his school days. Service Learning programs must have specific goals in mind, and a system to support them. It should connect community services to the learning goals. In some cases, people develop service mentality because of genetic reasons. However, genetic reasons alone may not help a student to acquire service mentality. Suitable environment will help the students to develop more service mentality. In order to develop the suitable environment for service learning, planning and preparations are necessary. To conclude, service learning should be made mandatory in order to prepare the students better equipped for meeting the life challenges in future. Theoretical contents learned from the classrooms will become meaningful only when the students were able to apply it in the practical context. Service learning will help the students in doing so and therefore service learning should be made compulsory to earn a high school diploma. ... In their opinion school is a place in which learning should take place rather than servicing. However, such people have forgotten to realise the fact that learning by doing is the most efficient method of the learning process. Students may get lot of contents from their text books; however they will never realise the importance of such contents in the absence of practice. For example, students may learn more about Mother Teresa and her contributions from text books. But only those who take part in the community servicing will learn more about the depth, breadth and greatness of Mother’s services. According to Jonathan Sims, the student representative of Maryland state board of education, â€Å"students who are forced to community work may view the work as something to get out of the way and they will become clock watchers† (Morris, p. 4). The above arguments seem to be meaningless. In my opinion, when planned properly, service learning allows students to utilize their c lassroom learning, and use it in a real life situation.  It is difficult to create a wall between education and servicing. In fact the ultimate aim of education is servicing. Whatever the knowledge acquired by a student while learning, becomes meaningful only when he applies it in his personal, professional and social life. In other words, service learning will help the students to apply their knowledge learned from the classrooms. According to Ron Peiffer, Director of communication and special projects at Maryland state department of education, â€Å"when opponents argue that we cannot mandate volunteerism, they are ignoring the basic goal of required service programs ie, education† (Morris, p. 4). â€Å"Training throughout the mentoring experience would have helped to make