Notable Individuals of The Service Learning Idea
Several of the proponents of citizenship and service-learning are John Locke, John Dewey, and Dr. Benjamin Barber.
John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher and physician who had the idea that instead of just book learning, knowledge needs to be an experience. He believed that a man’s sense of perception had to be his greatest learning tool. Locke once said, “All wealth is the product of labor.” He understood that a man not only had to experience something to learn, he also had to meditate on what he had experienced in order to truly learn what was being taught.
“Democracy has to be born anew every generation and education is its midwife.” -John Dewey (1859-1952) Dewey made it clear from his writing that democracy, citizenship and education belong together. One cannot be learned without the others. There is a link between citizenship and education, one that can be learned through service-learning. John Dewey also said, “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” He knew that one cannot have the mindset of just preparing for life, they must know that life is about learning.
A man by the name of Dr. Benjamin Barber (1939-????)has a concern for citizenship and education in America. The basic theme of much of Dr. Barber’s work is how to strengthen democracy. He has been a big supporter of requiring civics classes that include service-learning courses to advance citizenship.
Service-learning can motivate students and help them to understand social issues while developing positive relationships with those in there communities.
Read more about this topic: Service-learning, Origins of Service-Learning
Famous quotes containing the words notable, individuals, service, learning and/or idea:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Until philosophers hold power, neither states nor individuals will have rest from trouble.”
—Plato (427–347 B.C.)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,
That loved his learning better than mankind,
Though courteous to the worst; much falling he
Brooded upon sanctity....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A cow does not know how much milk it has until the milkman starts working on it. Then it looks round in surprise and sees the pail full to the brim. In the same way a writer has no idea how much he has to say till his pen draws it out of him. Thoughts will then appear on the paper that he is amazed to find that he possessed. “How brilliant!” he says to himself. “I had no idea I was so intelligent.” But the reader may not be so im pressed.”
—Gerald Branan (1894–1987)