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:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The people needed to be rehoused, but I feel disgusted and depressed when I see how they have done it. It did not suit the planners to think how they might deal with the community, or the individuals that made up the community. All they could think was, “Sweep it away!” The bureaucrats put their heads together, and if anyone had told them, “A community is people,” they would not have known what they were on about.”
—May Hobbs (b. 1938)
“The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Their holders have always seemed to me like a woman who should undertake at a state fair to run a sewing machine, under pretense of advertising it, while she had never spent an hour in learning its use.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)