curriculum and recruiting impressionable youths for causes dear to the hearts

of graying activists."³⁸Others, including those responsible for Goshen

College's SST program, argue that service-learning, like all learning, is not

and should not be value-neutral. Acts of service need to be connected with

critical reflection on contexts, helping students see the links between social

policies and homelessness or teen pregnancy or poverty. If students are asked

to serve America, they might produce not only George Bush's "thousand points

of light," but also "a thousand points of the status quo," say University of

Illinois and New York University professors Joseph Kahne and Joel

Westheimer.³⁹Service learning ought not be solely charity:it is engaged

learning, backed by prior and ongoing systematic and critical analysis of

social and political realities which establish the context for service. Again,

service learning is a form of praxis, a circular activity of action and

reflection.

Internationalservice programs, including Goshen's, have their own

problems. In overseas settings -- where histories of colonialism and

patronizing, self-interested, First World-initiated development have soured

nationals on outside assistance, and where frequently racial, cultural or

religious tensions may be heightened by the appearance of (often white)

middle-class American undergraduates -- students must "serve" with

38_{Finn and Vanourek, "Charity," 48.}

39_{Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer, "In the Service of What? The Politics of}
Service Learning," Phi Delta Kappan (May 1996):596. In light of this, it is
worth mentioning that in a 1982-83 review of SST, GC Professor of
Anthropology Ron Stutzman reported that host evaluators wanted to see GC
"reaffirm its Mennonite tradition by taking a position with them in the
service of peace and social justice."See Stuart W. Showalter, "A Bold
Experiment in Education," Goshen College Bulletin (March 1985):4. For cross-
cultural and legal reasons, SSTers are discouraged from getting involved in
"political activities" while in their host countries.

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