Collegiate Service-Learning may
be an effective venue for facilitating life purpose development. This is the
starting point of the multinational study led by Clark University on how
Service-Learning influences life purpose, in which we collaborate.
Service-Learning includes both
coursework and engagement with the community, with the intention to both learn
and contribute. As a high impact learning experience that involves reaching out
to others, it may be particularly valuable in promoting the beyond-the-self
dimension of purpose, thereby affecting youths’ capacity to contribute to
social problem solving. It affects dimensions of human life/development that
are related to purpose, such as self-awareness, identity development, moral
reasoning, social consciousness and responsibility, civic engagement, and
vocational clarity.
Service-Learning helps to
develop purposeful intentions by offering individuals the opportunity to
interact with their context, and it connects the classroom with the community
with the aim of helping students to think beyond themselves and increase their
sense of social responsibility. Action, information, reflection and discussion
involved in Service-Learning help students clarifying their values and defining
who they are now, who they want to become, what is valuable to them and how to
act according to those values
In this methodology, self
awareness and pro-social commitment must be intrinsically related to ethics.
The three dimensions of purpose (intention, action and pro-social commitment)
do not add to it unless they are orchestrated ethics. Moral reasoning in S-L
has to be linked with the concern about the consequences and effects of our own
personal and professional actions with other people. That is why encouraging
ethical concerns in the students must lead them to see the other as a
legitimate other in coexistence with the self.
These are some of the reasons
why students participating in this type of activities have to be encouraged to
identify a purpose in life. For that, planned discussions that facilitate
students´ awareness of long-term goals are necessary. These could be the basis
for designing Service-Learning projects that help students to identify and
pursue their goals. But also, teachers themselves should spend time reflecting
on their own values, beliefs and purpose in life in order to be able to
effectively lead students in doing the same.
We have presented this theoretical framework at the 41st Conference of the Association for Moral Education
(AME), that has taken place in Santos (Brasil).
