SLS-9d - Leadership of the Teacher

Whenever service-learning is discussed, attention is generally focused on the student.  It is natural as service-learning is fundamentally a pedagogy for the purpose of educating the student.  We naturally ask questions such as: What services are being provided? What impact are they making on the community?  What are the students learning? How should the students be prepared? Should service-learning be compulsory or voluntary?   What are critical success factors? …

However, serious attention is also due to the teacher, who is arguably the most critical factor to the success of service-learning.  Obviously, service-learning cannot happen, let alone succeed, without the teacher planning, providing the teaching and organising the service.  There are also a number of issues that are generally not sufficiently recognised regarding the teachers of service-learning. 

1. Teachers have to be trained before they can teach service-learning.  Teachers are generally hired to teach courses in the academic discipline for which they are trained, e.g., engineering, language, health science, business.  But for an engineering teacher/professor to teach a course applying engineering skills in service-learning, additional training/preparation in the pedagogy is required.  At the least: service-learning concepts, supervision of field work, teaching and assessment of reflection.  And then there are the social issues to be addressed through the service. 
2. Students come and go. They participate in the service-learning project for a semester, perhaps a year or two, and they are gone.  Occasionally a few may stay behind to assist the teacher, act as student leaders, or develop their own related projects.  But they all graduate in no more than a few years’ time. It is the teacher who stays and provides the continuity and sustainability of the service-learning course.  They are the custodian of the body of knowledge relevant to the course -  understanding of the issues and the community, relevant technologies and practices, relationship with the community and partners, etc.  Such intangibles are most critical to the success of the course and hence valuable.   
3. A passionate teacher in service-learning makes a great difference.  Service-learning is much more about nurturing a compassionate and responsible attitude rather than the imparting of knowledge.  A passionate teacher sets an example which goes a long way towards inspiring the desired response. A teacher who teaches service-learning without passion is unlikely to inspire the same.