Service Learning in Overseas Nations: U.S. Student Teachers Give, Grow, and Gain Outside the Classroom

Abstract

Service learning and overseas student teaching are receiving increased attention in education literature. For example, Kielsmeier (1993) touts service learning as an emerging educational improvement strategy (p. 5) in the U.S. school reform movement. Learning activities, by combining classroom work with service/social action projects. . . . can help produce dramatic improvements in student attitudes, motivation, and achievement (Nathan & Kielsmeier, 1991, p. 739). Although much of the literature on service learning addresses its use in U.S. elementary and secondary classrooms, Checkoway (1996) describes the value of incorporating service learning into the curriculum at the tertiary level. Through the life experiences provided by community-based projects, the university students acquired substantive knowledge and practical skills . . . not readily available in the classroom (p. 604). Students gained this knowledge and skills often as a direct result of working in communities with individuals whose back, grounds differed greatly from theirs. DeJong and Groomes (1996) used relevant, community-based service learning to prepare preservice teachers for work in schools with children deemed at risk because of impoverished conditions at home. Mahan and Stachowski (1994) describe overseas student teaching as a viable means of developing a broader world perspective in preservice teachers (p. 15). Such experiences immerse novice educators in cultures outside the United States through classroom teaching practice, host family living, interactions with diverse foreign citizens, and community involvement. Some (Baker, 1985; Korsgaard, 1996; Stachowski, 1994; West, 1985) believe overseas student teaching programs have the potential to meet a variety of goals and objectives: increasing the global perspectives of future educators and providing opportunities for personal and professional growth; preparing novice teachers for the cultural mix in their stateside classrooms (Krogh, 1990); and enabling them to promote restructuring of traditional schools and practices (Williams & Kelleher, 1987). A marriage of service learning and overseas student teaching may yield new and exciting ideas in teacher education. Requiring U.S. student teachers abroad to perform community-based service learning projects encourages them to move beyond the safety net of the host school and host family and develop connections with individuals, organizations, and circumstances that may otherwise have received little consideration. Coupled with its hallmark of reflection, service learning can provide U.S. students firsthand knowledge of host community problems, conditions, and needs, and insight into attitudes, beliefs, and values of its citizens. Such knowledge and insight will enhance the overseas experience by broadening participants' perspectives on life in the host nation and developing a greater appreciation of the common concerns shared by people. Student teachers who give, grow, and gain outside of the classroom through service learning projects may make service learning a part of the curriculum in their own future classrooms. In this article, we examine data from service learning projects planned and performed by U.S. student teachers in England, Wales, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Their reflections and subsequent insights suggest that the service learning requirement added a significant dimension to their overseas experience that classroom teaching alone could not have achieved. Based on these data, we discuss implications for including service learning in student teaching. Before examining these data, we briefly describe the Overseas Student Teaching Project from which we derived these data. Overseas Student Teaching Indiana University-Bloomington has offered the Overseas Student Teaching Project for the past 20 years. An optional supplement to conventional student teaching, this popular project has prepared and placed over 750 student teachers for teaching and community involvement assignments in schools of England, Scotland, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. …