Service-Learning in English Education:
A Rationale for Learning as Community Service

In the fall of 2003, UGA English Education major Kasha Whorton visited the Pinewood Estates trailer home community in north Athens to donate some furniture to its residents. She was struck with the many needs of the community, which serves as home primarily to immigrants from two of the poorest states in Mexico, Michoacan and Guerrero. Michoacan "has a large indigenous population, in general the [economically] poorest . . . people in Mexico." Following immigration to the US, these people, including the residents of the Pinewood Estates community, continue to live in poverty, with the additional challenge of being linguistic minorities in their new home.

Kasha made an impassioned plea to her classmates to take action to benefit the community, and they took up her challenge in a bold way. The students organized into a set of committees dedicated to contributing food, clothing, kitchenware, and other household goods to the Pinewood residents. In addition, Kasha, an accomplished equestrian, organized a horse show to benefit the community. She and her classmates sold advertising to local businesses to display on shirts sold at the benefit. Through this effort the class extended their teaching, learning, and service into a segment of the community greatly in need of their outreach.

With the graduation of the class of 2003-4, the English Education faculty hoped to maintain the spirit, enthusiasm, good will, and good works initiated by this remarkable grassroots effort. Kasha's initiative thus began its evolution from one class's great idea to the English Education program's systemic outreach effort to serve the Athens community. The project now involves a commitment from each English Education major to tutor area residents through the course Service-Learning in English Education. Service-Learning in English Education is not simply outreach. We anticipate that the experience of working with people from immigrant and linguistic/racial minorities will help them understand how to teach in culturally responsive ways. Luis Moll, whose research has influenced the design of the program, has argued that

"existing classroom practices underestimate and constrain what Latino and other children are able to display intellectually." He believes the secret to literacy instruction is for schools to investigate and tap into the "hidden" home and community resources of their students. And he points out that his research calls the "deficit model" of student assessment into serious question. The home investigations revealed that many families had abundant knowledge that the schools did not know about and therefore did not use in order to teach academic skills.

We believe, then, that Service-Learning in English Education will not only serve the Athens community well, but will also enrich UGA's English Education majors' understanding of the resources and knowledge that what Lisa Delpit calls Other People's Children bring with them to school. This understanding includes recognizing the attributes of students from marginalized cultures that skillful teachers can draw on to expand all students' knowledge, rather than viewing their cultural ways of knowing as deficits that stand in the way of their educational progress. Service-Learning in English Education is consistent with the National Council of Teachers of English's policies on Academic Success for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. The 1986 Task Force on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English produced a position paper that states, "Culturally and linguistically diverse students can achieve academic success if appropriate strategies for teaching reading and writing are used. Effective teaching strategies are essential to the intellectual growth of all students, but they are especially critical to the success of linguistically and culturally diverse students."

We anticipate, then, that UGA English Education majors who take Service-Learning in English Education will emerge as better educated about a segment of their student populations who have not experienced success in U.S. schools and often drop out well before their scheduled graduations. Our prospective English teachers will develop the foundation for providing culturally relevant instruction that draws on "hidden" abilities and knowledge so that students living in poverty may exhibit better performance and retention rates and become better integrated into mainstream U.S. society and contributing members of the U.S. economy and thus have greater access to the American Dream.

Alignment with UGA's Vision and Strategic Plan

Service-Learning in English Education is well aligned with the 5-year Strategic Plans of The University of Georgia, the College of Education, and the Department of Language and Literacy Education. As both a land-grant and sea-grant institution, UGA has a fundamental mission to serve the people of the State of Georgia. As the UGA Strategic Plan states,

In each of its programs, in each area of teaching, research and service, and in every dimension of its thinking, the University has as its first and foremost goal the high calling of "Serving Georgia." Teaching its students with care and distinction, pursuing new discoveries and artistic creations that will enrich and improve the lives of our citizens and continually looking for ways in which the expertise of faculty and the other manifold assets of the institution can be utilized to benefit the state is the fundamental mission of the University of Georgia. . . . UGA will accelerate its work on cooperative projects with the Athens/Clarke community, and will develop new programs to bridge the University and its neighbors.

This sort of outreach is well-realized by Service-Learning in English Education, with a specific emphasis on some of the state's most impoverished residents.

The College of Education's Strategic Plan for 2000-2010 includes Goal #3, to "Increase the COE's Active Engagement with Constituents". This goal is elaborated as follows:

A defining characteristic of distinguished research faculty at land-grant institutions is the impact of their scholarship on the lives of constituents. While successful in addressing societal needs in the past, the COE is committed to developing more responsive, collegial, and effective models of interaction called for by the complex challenges faced by today's communities. The COE seeks to become an engaged college whose faculty, students, and staff anticipate and respond to societal challenges through direct involvement with constituents in its programmatic efforts in research, teaching, and outreach.

The strategic plan includes the actions of "Develop[ing] responsive partnerships with schools, community agencies, businesses, corporations, and other universities" and "Establish[ing] resources and a reward structure encouraging faculty and student participation in engagement efforts." Service-Learning in English Education brings UGA students and faculty into the kind of active engagement with community constituents that the College of Education seeks to achieve.

The Vision Statement for the Department of Language and Literacy Education, in which the program in English Education resides, seeks

to provide community, state, regional, national, and international leadership in promoting effective practices in language and literacy education. To produce knowledge, policy, understanding, and application in literacy and language study that responds to changing demographic and economic conditions affecting these constituencies. To educate generations of researchers and practitioners in a manner that exemplifies and disseminates effective practices in literacy education.

Realization of this vision is measured in part by the "number of students in diverse clinical and school settings for pre-professional experience." Further, the department seeks "to increase students' experiences in working with under-represented student populations (low SES, ESOL, special needs, students of color) through more diverse field placements." Service-Learning in English Education is among the program in English Education's primary vehicles for achieving the goals of immersing teacher candidates in diverse settings.