BotB: To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan Illich
To kick-off our Best of the Best Global Service Learning series, we present a familiar source: To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan Illich. Title: To Hell with Good Intentions Author: Ivan Illich Target Audience: Students Date: 1968 Succinct Summary: Ivan Illich challenges students to consider the implications of often-paternalistic service and volunteerism. Through careful rhetoric that is difficult to escape, he insists that volunteers cannot avoid serving as unwilling advertisements for the middle class US lifestyle – and suggests that students should not, under any conditions, engage in international service. Reviewer quotes: “In his usual biting and sarcastic style, Illich’s…
Why Fair Trade Learning in a Chart
-FAIR TRADE LEARNING- Does anything work? We can build better global partnerships together. | Infographics
Donations and their Global Flow through Art and Popular Media
By Elizabeth Rosenberg The New York Times Magazine traces the global flow of charitable clothing drives in How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back. Had we ever considered that our donations may be sorted into a “wiper rag” category? Or had we thought of the fact that our garments may be so extraneous that they are collected into mountains of unwanted clothes? The “clothes mountain” photograph linked below was taken by Aaron Huey as part of a National Geographic issue on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, a location frequented by numerous alternative break service-learning trips. See: In…
Learning from Community: Community Outcome Assessment Best Practices and Insights in Global Service-Learning
We write to share an upcoming opportunity at the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement Annual Conference. This year the conference takes place November 6 – 8 in Omaha, Nebraska. One of the pre-conference sessions, which will take place from 9 – 3 on Wednesday, November 6th, will focus on community impact assessment in global service-learning. As you know, this is an incredibly important area in which we all have room to grow. Check out the description below and register here. We hope you can join us. Presenters: Eric Hartman, Providence College Richard Kiely, Cornell University Cynthia…
Travelers’ Tales: Facing Fears, Learning by Living, & Promoting Peace
By Eric Hartman Our speakers dropped in after visiting 80 countries and countless communities during a road trip that had already stretched past 2,400 days. They had a lot to share. But they were able to boil their insights down to a few core themes that included the importance of facing your fears, continuous learning, and finding your “What if…?” Through my role as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Global Studies at Providence College, I was able to invite Dan Noll and Audrey Scott of Uncornered Market to campus. They absolutely engaged the students – and many faculty members who attended as…
Fair Trade Learning*
Editors Note: While feedback is still requested as indicated in the text that follows, a version of the standards below has been published as: Hartman, E., Morris Paris, C., & Blache-Cohen, B. (2014). Fair trade learning: Ethical standards for community-engaged international volunteer tourism. Tourism & Hospitality Research (14) 1 – 2: 108 – 116. Dear Colleagues: Your feedback is requested. During the past two years, numerous concerned global citizens, international education practitioners and researchers, nongovernmental organization representatives, and community members around the world have been collaborating to consider and produce a set of global community engagement standards that meet the demands…
*Stuff* Study Abroad Students Say
It’s Study Abroad Fair Season! Students are being ushered to their respective unions in droves. They shuffle among institutional agreements, third-party providers, stories of transformative experiences, and glossy handouts and marketing swag. What are students hoping to find? What are educators hoping to encourage? How will we know that the learning was meaningful? The guest post below offers some reflective thinking on a provocative video created by two Amizade interns last year. One editorial note before we begin: responsible, deeply engaging, and educationally meaningful programs occur everywhere. The biting wit that is central to the video should push us again to ask what…
Enabling Speech: A Communications Partnership in Peru
“I cried when Dr. Manoj Abraham—a surgeon from Vassar Hospital—put the last stitch into the baby’s lip.” Today’s guest post is from Dr. Shari Berkowitz, an assistant professor at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. We thank Dr. Berkowitz both for the opportunity to re-post her blog entry and for answering many questions to ensure consistency with high quality global health volunteer trips that avoid the unfortunately common missteps plaguing too many programs. Specifically, Dr. Berkowitz shared that the program professionals and administrators, all of whom have medical training or background, cooperated closely with local healthcare professionals to ensure post-operative continuation…
What is Enough? Educating for Transformation, Seeking More
Julia Lang, one of our regular contributors, just completed three weeks of teaching at the Civic Leadership Institute. After interacting with a homeless person on the way home one night, Julia found herself wondering what more she could do. She offers a great set of reflections and challenges for everyone working at the intersections of university and community, education and transformation. By Julia Lang Three days before students left the Civic Leadership Institute*, where I had just spent three weeks teaching about inequality, power, privilege, leadership, social justice, social responsibility, and leading service projects throughout San Francisco, I found myself walking…
Upcoming: GSL Best of the Best, Updates from the Field, Fair Trade Learning, Community Impact, & New Intern!
Welcome back to the academic year in North America! We have an exciting slate lined up for the next few months as we continue to assemble, organize, and share leading resources and reflective pieces on careful and conscientious community-engagement around the world. Soon we will be sharing updates from the field from our regular contributor Julia Lang as well as Dr. Shari Berkowitz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at Mercy College in New York. We have also begun to organize a GSL Best of the Best list compiled last year by Melody Porter, Associate Director of Community…
Challenging Video from UC-Berkeley's #GlobalPOV Project asks, "Is Privilege Poverty?"
“What motivates us to travel short or long distances, to spend a day, a week, many months, or even a spare 15 minutes, in service to a community we may know very little about? This poverty action we’re seeking to undertake—why are we compelled to do it? More importantly, who is it all for, really?” – Thus begins a compelling and challenging video narrated by Clare Talwalker, Vice Chair of the Global Poverty & Practice Minor at UC-Berkeley and author of “What Kind of Global Citizen is the Student Volunteer?” in the Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education. It aims to…
Northwestern International Service-Learning Summit Gathering Steam! Register Now.
The Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies and the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University are hosting the International Service Learning Summit from October 23-25, 2013. Organizers recently announced the keynote speaker, UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility, Dr. Budd Hall. Along with co-sponsors DukeEngage and the Center for Social Development and Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University, The Buffett Center is bringing together those involved in community-based, experiential, or service learning efforts abroad to examine critical issues facing the field and create an agenda for developing and measuring success for international educators. Read more…
The Ethics of International Development: A Video on Voluntourism
Through the Ethics in International Engagement & Service-Learning Project at the University of British Columbia, students composed this compelling video that considers: What do you think you’re doing? What are you really doing? (When you serve abroad). It raises important questions and will certainly be useful in challenging other students and would-be volunteers as they consider international engagement opportunities. The EIESL Project website above also includes links to numerous additional, related resources.
Graduate Intern Wanted at the Building a Better World Forum for Global Service-Learning
The Building a Better World Forum for Global Service-Learning is seeking a graduate or advanced undergraduate intern to support the development of online dialogue and open access resources that advance conscientious cross-cultural service and learning around the world. To date, the BBW Forum has organized more than 250 peer-reviewed research resources on global service-learning as well as teaching tools and syllabi examples. Additionally, the blog regularly features the perspective of critical, conscientious researchers, practitioners, and activists who are working to advance a world that more completely recognizes human dignity and environmental sustainability. Desired Qualifications and Expectations: Ability to commit 10 – 15 hours a week beginning…
Cultivating the “Nat Geo” Spirit: Students as Explorers, Scientists, and Artists
I’m excited to introduce the first of several upcoming posts by Julia Lang. Julia has previously contributed to this conversation by sharing entries relating to her thesis research: Culture. Shock. Service. Study Abroad. Global Citizenship? and Transformative Experience: Service-Learning Student to Scholar. She has a very exciting upcoming year of global service-learning leadership, and she will be sharing reflections here about her work with National Geographic Student Experiences in Costa Rica, The Civic Leadership Institute, and Carpe Diem Global Education. Julia begins with this update and set of reflections for practitioners from Costa Rica: By Julia Lang This summer, I…
Lest Best Intentions become the Enemy of the Good
A regular reader called my attention to an essay shared on MN Campus Compact’s website; the piece appears below in full. The original author, Dr. Gerald W. Schlabach, was kind enough to extend the opportunity to reprint his thoughtful meditation on Ivan Illich’s “To Hell with Good Intentions” here. It’s an important read for faculty, students, and everyday citizens considering or preparing for service abroad- EH By Gerald W. Schlabach, University of St. Thomas No student should do “service learning” in another cultural setting without having to stop in his or her tracks at some point by reading Ivan Illich’s…
Academic Solidarity Movement – Vieques, Puerto Rico to Prescott College, Arizona
During the past academic year, 4 Prescott College Sustainability Education Doctoral Students studied Fair Trade Learning and developed a program based on its principles. Now, their insights and commitments from Vieques are pushing them forward to engage in social change work with Vieques community partners. Read on to learn about their experience and interest in the power and possibility of public radio in Vieques today. – EH By Eric Lassahn, with input from Jen Christion Myers, Meg Ferrigno, and Lindsey Laret Prescott College’s limited-residency Ph.D. program in Sustainability Education allows students to design and plan their second year fall colloquium. Students…
Americanah: Strong Characters, Propelling Narrative, Global and Local Lenses, Class and Race
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie provides a beautiful and humane entry point into the profound impact of race, nationality, and migration policy both domestically and globally. It takes place in Nigeria, the UK, and the US, and it is everything other reviewers promised: From the New York Times: “Americanah” is witheringly trenchant and hugely empathetic, both worldly and geographically precise, a novel that holds the discomfiting realities of our times fearlessly before us. It never feels false. And from the LA Times: These characters are richly drawn… When parts of the plot seem familiar — the perils of emigration, the difficulties of being…
The Overview Effect – An Amazing 20-Minute Video to Brighten Your Day
A recently released 20-minute documentary trailer beautifully tells the story of astronauts’ experiences looking back on the earth. It leads with the profound proposition uttered by English astronomer Fred Hoyle in 1948: Once a photograph of earth, taken from outside, is available … a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose. Enjoy: Video not loading? View it here. The Overview Effect “refers to the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin…
Safety for Female Travelers
Why are we talking about solo female travel, not violence against women? That’s the question that perpetual traveler Jodi Ettenberg asks at the beginning of her thoughtful essay, Revisiting the Solo Female Travel Experience. As an educator, I appreciate her mix of experience, data, reflection, and thoughtful tips for safe travel today. This kind of essay can be shared as a class reading before departure, mixed with assignments to peruse content-based pieces like the US State Department’s Resource Page for Female Study Abroad Travelers or assigned in conjunction with an article by a licensed therapist and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer,…
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