The Service/Politics Split: Rethinking Service to Teach Political Engagement

Extract

Over the past few years, I have experimented with a classroom exercise that encourages students to think about how they perceive service and politics. I ask the students to create lists of service activities and political activities in which they and their friends and families engage. The service list typically includes such activities as working in a soup kitchen, delivering meals to the homebound, tutoring in the school system, and cleaning up parks. The list of political activities usually includes things like voting, protesting, raising money, lobbying, letter writing, and running for office.

Turning students' attention to the list of community service activities, I ask them to give some adjectives that people might use to describe the listed projects. The students usually offer such descriptors as altruistic, caring, helping, selfless, and giving, as well as individualistic and one-on-one. Often, the students will also add the words selfish or insincere to describe those students who engage in community service to enhance their resume or earn academic credit.

Asked for adjectives that describe politics, the words come fast and furious—dirty, corrupt, ambitious, crooked, dishonest, compromising, slow. After the initial rush of negative descriptors and with little prompting on my part, students will also talk about politics as a means to affect social change and make a difference for groups of people.

I have used this exercise with audiences ranging from young women uninterested in politics, to young people planning careers in politics and policy making, to foundation officials.