The "Push" of Experiential Voices

Andrew Foran
Graduate Student, University of Alberta
E-mail: aforan@ualberta.ca

What lessons can educators learn from the experiential narratives of the students, and the pedagogic reflections of the teacher, who experienced the Adventure Based Experiential Learning (ABEL) course at Sir John A. Macdonald High School, in the Halifax Regional Municipality of Nova Scotia? The student voices contained in this article may challenge the emerging pedagogic practices of service learning. As I present these voices, I hermeneutically reflect on the pedagogic significance contained in their lived experiences for phenomenological insights of personal growth, student challenge, peer support, and personal identity, within a community-based practice of education. The ABEL course did not constitute a rejection of the current-curricular system; rather I believe that it has proven to be an exemplar for the way curriculum should be taught in today's schools. Although teachers have become increasingly successful at fostering student growth, it seems that they have not managed to bring about widespread change in the traditional way students are expected to learn or in what courses we expect them to learn. I believe ABEL is an innovation, created from the benefits of a traditional educational experience, which can provide a new image of learning, leading, and teaching.

I have often heard students complain that school was pointless and unrelated to the real world. ABEL is a response to student and community concerns. In a rural Nova Scotian high school, the concerns of the real world take on less importance, considering the collapse of the maritime fisheries, which resulted in impoverished economic conditions. Compounding this was the demise of small-culturally distinct communities that surround the larger urban center of Halifax, due to amalgamation, creating the super city. The numerous communities that Sir John A. Macdonald High School served became fragmented, not only from each other, but also from an urban municipal support system that became foreign and geographically removed from rural life. These severed smaller communities are still disassociated from the larger urban center of the Halifax Regional Municipality. This left the school community struggling to achieve relevancy in the subjects taught as we prepared to educate our seniors to take their place within the world after graduation. The ABEL course was the curricular result that focused on service learning and experiential education. ABEL became the impetus for a new youth leadership course attempting to achieve authenticity in the learning experience, reconnect students to the communities, and to improve the esteem of those involved (community members included) in ABEL.

Over a period of six years ABEL has evolved from an extra-curricular student leadership club into a student-leadership credit course. ABEL entwined itself into the school culture and set the stage for curricular reform within the school. Hence, this paper is a synthesis of experiences, a reflective story-telling to gain and share understanding of what it meant to learn experientially in the ABEL course. Working with non-traditional teaching methods has positioned me on the fringes of the teaching community. Morrison-Shetlar and Heinrich claim that experiential teaching "is both exciting and risky--exciting because learners actively engage in their own learning and risky because the outcome of any experiential exercise is never certain" (10). My experiential approach to teaching did not involve a traditional transmission of knowledge. The deliberate avoidance of textbooks in ABEL and an "outdoor classroom" within a school has afforded me freedom to explore the power of experiential education. The "outdoor classroom" became the surrounding wilderness reserves that isolated our school, the abundant open spaces naturally found in rural domains, and the communities themselves that our school served. The outdoor classroom was the curricular engagement "outside" the traditional school.

The Importance of the "Experiential" in ABEL

ABEL's curricular foundation is experiential education that includes adventure education (cooperative games & challenge initiatives), outdoor education, and service learning. The starting point for the course is for the class to develop a sense of community, a forging of personal bonding into a sort of "team," through adventure programming (Priest & Gass; Ellmo & Graser; Rohnke & Butler; Rhonke). Teambuilding challenges, initiatives, or cooperative games allowed students to gain identity and establish a sense of self-esteem. They developed communication skills, confidence in decision-making, shared in-group successes through cooperation, and drew on their academic intelligences to solve problems that confronted the class. ABEL also challenged students to develop personally through wilderness experiences (Drury and Bonney; Davis-Berman and Berman; Andrews). The trust, a personal knowledge of strengths and weaknesses, the development of a "student community," and sense of personal accomplishments, with and without peer support, became authentic experiences in the wilderness that surrounded our school. The wilderness became a "classroom" where "real life" was played out. And it was here the ABEL students were able to discover personal abilities. However, the power of experiential education was further revealed to me by the service learning projects. These community-based projects included programs such as ice-safety (for rural-lake communities), lost and found woods-proofing for community children, writer-workshops for students in Sir John A Macdonald's family of schools, junior high learning centers, and numerous environmental-community programs (Mysterious Earth Encounters, Winter Treasures). Cairn and Cairn report that service learning is a pedagogical movement that cuts across the curriculum and is not an academic discipline. Service learning can be rationalized as "engaged pedagogy:"

[E]ngaged pedagogy emphasizes well-being- meaning that teachers are actively engaged in a process of self-actualization...[The] self-actualization process included not letting my voice of authority and experience silence the students' voices in struggles to understand...Experiential education is so important in building an engaged learning community because it puts the students' experiences, rather than the teacher's, at the center of knowledge construction.
(Warren 135)

Students become empowered to do more within the community, and in turn, develop positive relationships that carry over into the school culture. They are thus empowered to improve the quality of life within their own community. Quality improvements are possible because students become responsible for relationships that extend into the community, and throughout the school community of teachers and peers. This collaborative group tackled emerging community needs, social problems, or found ways to serve others by filling the gaps left within the smaller communities as a result of amalgamation. The youth became leaders, and the communities associated with Sir John A. Macdonald became active partners in the learning process. ABEL has confirmed the thought in many youth that they can become leaders and that they do have the ability to make a difference by serving.

My discovery, through student debriefs and journals, was that service learning was the most powerful experience for them. This is consistent with findings on youth empowerment in the areas of helping/assisting, realizing the importance of caring about self and others, feeling like part of a group, and meeting challenges (Witman 133). This collaborative reflection examines ABEL as an authentic and pedagogic (van Manen, The Tact) form of empowerment for students.

The examination of this shared phenomenon between my students and myself, as a teacher, provided an in-depth understanding of the educational experience of ABEL. I agree with Rice and Brown, as they state a need for a "space for emotion" in education (145). Bell Hooks expands on the classroom space by advocating for a curricular transformation that sees the classroom as a place where students can become excited about ideas, and that allows us to bring our passions into the classroom. Hooks not only offers the notion of passion as pivotal to transformation but for classroom practice to consider the collective passion--students coming together allowing for an emotional response. The importance for a collective-emotional response is that "students must take on emotion-filled issues to be thoughtful, active members of the community" (Rice and Brown 145). They argue that this is an essential aspect of teaching and learning. ABEL provided the classroom space, and the community offered the issues; however, it was the students who allowed their passions to guide their learning.

I believe that real passion for learning comes from within and is kindled when students express their views about interests and issues that are authentic to them. As a teacher leading students into their respective communities, I witnessed this collective-emotional response to the issues that directly impacted their lives. The issues of importance, the community concerns, the authentic needs, resulted in students engaged in careful, thoughtful action. Students wanted to be a part of the solution, a resource that contributed to the well-being of those in their community. Students need to be able to bring themselves to a learning experience that allows them to create a curricular event owned by them. The students were responsible for the creation of the projects to serve those community needs; there was a personal and collective investment to improve the quality of life within their respective community. The leadership aspect for the youth of Sir John A. Macdonald resided in the fact that young people were linking curriculum and their knowledge to the issues within their community. The students were central to creation of community-school partnerships and they became a resource of service, not just a recipient of service. An accomplishment of this type was a celebration of their passion and intelligence.

These experiences became meaningful when reflected upon, and curriculum becomes the process through which the student and the teacher can grow within the system. For Ted Aoki, the pedagogical relationship becomes an opportunity in which the "educator and the educated are allowed to dwell in a present that embraces past experiences and is open to possibilities yet to be" (114). What insights can be learned from the "dwelling?" From the insights we can contribute to the ongoing educational challenge to "educate the whole child not to just pass on the socially-constructed products of society" (Dewey, Experience 18). For Dewey, the experience is explained as felt, which is not objective. However, the aim of knowledge is to challenge the problematic events in the world and to make changes by applying that knowledge (Dewey, John Dewey). As Dewey intuitively knew, "every experience lives on in further experiences. Hence, the central problem in education is to select the kind of experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences" (Experience 27) objective or not. This is the art of pedagogy, for a well-led learning endeavour does not just happen to the student. The experience needs to be created, nurtured and reflected upon for the benefit of the student's learning. Meaningful education is not something that can be easily packaged. Thus, if experience is felt, and the challenge of the problematic nature of our world is what drives the intellect to push boundaries of understanding, then could we not learn a more meaningful teaching strategy directly from student narratives, in our quest to developing life-long learners? It could be possible to discover needed "pedagogic elements," to support the practice of service learning. And these discoveries may be found within the simple stories of students engaged in learning and serving in the community.

Service Learning

Service learning has been termed the modern reform that is the vehicle for achieving the goals of education and youth development (Bhaerman, Cordell & Gomez 1). The hopes of this reform rest with Alan Waterman's findings in curricular outcomes of improved academics and positive social involvement for learners. Partners in educational change are supportive of this instructional reform, because of its potential to have a positive effect on the school environment and curriculum. ABEL is an example in which service learning is not the program add-on but a sound experiential high school for credit course (credit value equal to other subject courses in our school). The unique feature of this course was that ABEL was not subject dependent. ABEL cut across the curriculum by allowing students to bring in personal leadership, community interests, academic intents, strengths, and passions for serving the community. The student assessed and created the service focus, only to be supported and guided by the pedagogic sensitivity of the instructor and involved community members.

Service learning is an instructional strategy, a philosophy, and a process (Kinsley and McPherson 115). Service-learning, as a classroom strategy, combines service to the community, allowing the process of student learning to occur in a way that improves both the student and the community. This process is further supported with the following criteria. Service learning:

• Is a method whereby students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of communities;
• Is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program and the community;
• Helps foster civic responsibility;
• Is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students, or the education components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled; and
• Provides structured time for the students and the participants to reflect on the service experience
  (The Alliance for Service-Learning in Education Reform 1993, 71)

Timothy Stanton's view on service learning varied slightly:

an approach to experiential learning, an expression of values--service to others, which determines the purpose, nature and process of educational exchange between learners (students) and the people they serve, and between experiential education programs and the community organizations with which they work. (3)

One could argue that service learning is the curricular practice that can achieve hooks' "collective passion" and Warren's "engaged pedagogy." Service learning allows for a curriculum practice that can create, with our students, educational journeys that are meaningful and powerful. Nell Noddings claims that learning will occur when the classroom, the community, the students, and the teachers involved legitimately care for one another's vested interests. ABEL is not a mandated service experience, rather a credit in self, living, relationships, including a broad understanding of care.

Service learning is a tie that strengthens the instructional methods, subject relevancy, and student involvement in the learning process. This tie brings the agent of education and the benefactor of education together through a process of genuine learning--community pedagogy. The student is an active partner in this process by creating community links. The connections between the communities and Sir John A. Macdonald were possible due to the creation of the service projects. These projects (examples listed above) came into existence where none existed, and the community continues to maintain the program after the students' involvement. Most importantly, many students remained involved with the school, and the community, through the service project even after graduation. Life-long learning is the common goal of many educators; therefore, it is critical to accept the view that the most important outcome in education is what our students do with the knowledge and skills they have learned. Madeline Grumet reminds us that this is currere, and educators must consider the importance of "what the individual does with the curriculum, ... [their] active reconstruction of [their] ...passage through its social, intellectual, physical structures" achieved through reflection and interpretation" (111). Service learning is the key to reforming traditional approaches by making education richer and fully experiential. Dan Conrad and Diane Hedin offer that service learning enhances mainstream educational environments by lending a community orientation to education and opening the societal dimension of experiential education (74).

For Westheimer, Kahne and Gerstein, experiential methodology unifies curriculum and invigorates pedagogy (41). Experiential education can take the student and the teacher on learning adventures outside the school by experiencing an authentic learning process. Service learning is the manner in which schools can explore the community for pedagogical moments that provide for meaningful educational experiences. The objective of service learning is to allow a "dynamic partnership between educational institutions and communities that results in the mutual benefits of learning and meaningful service" (Schaffer and Peterson154). Service learning projects, as a form of community based education, enhance the academic approach in learning to include a more fully experiential method of instruction that connects the student to authentic learning experiences.

With my students, we experienced powerful moments that allowed the curriculum to live in our hearts and intellect. Beyond the classroom, I witnessed my students take the lead role in providing community guidance by creating the "Wooden's River Environmental Action Team," bring respect and acceptance to an elementary school, Sir Charles Tupper, by facilitating a non-bullying peace education program, and instruction for the many system wide inservices when ABEL students were directing the teacher education workshops in service learning, adventure education or outdoor education. Beyond the classroom meant the realization that we were "outside" the traditional concept of educational practices. Patrick Slattery stresses that in the postmodern-era, education will need to remove the traditional borders:

Active community involvement in environmental projects, health and the social services, and ethnic preservation will become a priority. The borders between the school and the community in the postmodern curriculum will be dissolved, and thus, the quality of reverent relationships will replace the quantity of correct answers on tests as the focus of education. (96)

Current service learning literature is lacking a qualitative understanding of how to prepare students for responsible acts of service learning and the teachers' understanding of the possible richness of their pedagogic-community experiences. Student reflections on the ABEL course, some of which are provided below, provide significant insight into this gap in experiential practice. For exemplary practice in service learning, the instructional approach must be more than a project add-on, or an experiential project, it must be a process. ABEL has revealed that the process is best understood first from students' self-understanding not just the implementation of service learning instruction, grade results, or a tracking civic involvement. The act of service and student leadership is a pedagogic moment in education. The significance of this could be a definable moment in a student's life--the moment of positive realization that will forever remain with them.

The findings from the ABEL reflections contribute to our understanding in the following areas of needed research. Eyler (2000) indicates that critical research directions need to probe preparatory activities, community support, project design, and student engagement (15). "If we assume that service-learning is context-driven, and idiosyncratic to the student, the site, and the program, then we need data and analysis that focuses on the details of the people and the process" (Shumer 79). Supporting Warren's recommendations, we can learn from the students' stories how ABEL has created a learning community that prepares them for their roles as service learners.

Findings

Represented here are some of the findings based on a qualitative phenomenological inquiry utilizing a descriptive-hermeneutic research process. Phenomenology is the showing of human phenomena, of a lived experience, and through a hermeneutic, interpretative-reflective lens, the study was a continual phenomenological questioning in writing to evoke the "phenomenological seeing" (van Manen, Phenomenology). The "seeing" is the affirmation of human lived experiences. A phenomenological study draws on the experiential of lived experiences--concrete experiences, but relies on a range of descriptive text to show us the moment. Dermot Moran refers to this as the "phenomenological now" (43). The primary methods of data collection were in-depth-reflective conversations (Friesen & Orr; Eisner) with six participants from the ABEL course, and document analysis (Bogdan & Biklen; Merrian) of past journals, written assignments, photographs, and responses from the ABEL course. I generated study-specific documentation through a pre-interview reflection by providing each participant with photographs and samples of work (responses from past evaluations, journals or artistic responses). All of the participants--Brian, Jimmy, Skye, Robyn, Kevin and Robert (identity of the interviewee was changed to ensure confidentiality)--were graduates of Sir John A. Macdonald High School. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 22, and their academic ability, personal interests, and social interests were diverse. They were all from different years of the ABEL program's history.

The values of these educational experiences, from the students' perspective, were embedded into my own understanding. This provided me with a grasp of the ABEL experience by "showing" what each student felt they really experienced. The shared reflections allowed me to immerse myself in what pedagogy means to me as a teacher, beyond the technical aspects of the profession. The shared narratives informed my practice as an educator of the need for sensitive-pedagogic understanding in the realm of experiential education. The telling represents only a part of the story[ies], the many stories telling one story--the ABEL story. Insights gleamed from the students' narratives can provide teachers and experiential/service learning educators with an opportunity to examine a rich educational interpretation of how an "ABEL type" course can best serve students.

"The Telling"

ABEL is about youth leadership, and I could not separate myself from this self-discovery of leading, for I was a new teacher learning experientially what it meant to lead others. ABEL is also about my leadership, my teaching, and my personal life as an active volunteer in my community. ABEL is servant leadership, and Thomas Sergiovanni reminds us that at the heart of any form of leadership are the individual's beliefs, values, dreams, and commitments. The students in ABEL did not just take a curriculum-based course in adventure leadership they lived a curriculum adventure, and I experienced pedagogy. I was on my own with a group of kids, no chalkboard, overhead, textbook, or department. All that I had with me were my students and a belief of what learning could be.

Research needs to focus more on the quality of the service learning experience for the student and the community, rather than the reliance on statistics supporting program involvement, academic improvement or continued community involvement to prove the worth of service learning in classroom instruction. Preparing students for these moments takes time. There is a magic and energy that emerges when students "live" the curriculum. Statistics do little to help me prepare students in engaged-community pedagogy. When a service learning project is unfolding I feel there is a heightened pedagogic edge to this type of learning and teaching. It is the risk, the uncertainty, the excitement, and the adventure that is experienced in the community as students embrace their passions with needs and issues.

I am convinced that service learning cannot be done like a traditional assignment. Students need to grow into the experience by having time to discover who they are. They need to reflect on and determine their roles within a community, their passions, or what they feel they can offer a community issue or need. Students need to know first what they want to give or can offer others in the community. Before the students commit to the service projects, they have experienced a process of self-discovery. They need to discern their personal strengths and the ability to work with support from others. I believe it is a matter of building a team, a family, the group or community. If a student has not understood or experienced community, how can the teacher expect them to serve within an entity of which they have no authentic understanding? Service learning needs to give students "connected knowing" in that the project will be an accomplishment in academics, personal growth, and community improvement.

The following are student reflections, the narratives that focused on the meaning of service learning as a student, but with the reflective maturity of a young adult that has graduated from school. These reflections are of a lived experience in the community, as the students recalled their "moment" in serving and learning. It is from these narratives that pedagogic insights can be hermeneutically interpreted to offer recommendations in improving the experiential practice of service learning. These experiential voices offer practitioners insights into the life world of students engaged in serving.

Kevin's View of Service Learning: Opportunity to Put Myself Into the Projects: I needed something to develop effective service learning projects. If it was not ABEL, it had to be something else. I needed a reality check that I could do this. [Service learning] let me put what I learned to work. Like what I had learned about myself. It allowed me to take that and pour it into a project.

Jimmy's View of Service Learning: Not a Priority: Oh, the "make work" project. I really did not want to do it because it seemed like a lot of work [laughing]. Well, you had ownership of the project. You were proud of it. I will tell you where I learned to serve others. It was when we did the unloading of the Christmas trees. I did not want to do it, but I did it, and in the end I got satisfaction outof doing it. I was helping out those guys. I think it was also because it was tangible. There was a definite result. I definitely learned to serve, to combat that selfishness that every teenager has. [Service learning] was not going to happen without ABEL. I did not want to do it even with the ABEL group, but when we made the learning fun, it was okay. I did not fully understand the impact it was having on me then. I can take anything we did in ABEL and I can say that this had this impact. I can track the impact ABEL had on my life right up until now. I was not aware of what ABEL was to me then. That was my program. I created it. You did not give it to me. It was mine!

Robyn's View of Service Learning: As Important: The service projects would have been different without ABEL. There would have been a different person doing them. No, I'm not the same. No way. Yeah, but I don't think the same way, I don't have the same confidence, I'm not the same person, I changed completely. I don't have the same reasons. Before ABEL, I wasn't thinking that way, I would have just done it and I would have even been thinking like, okay, what am I going to get out of this? [Before ABEL] I wouldn't have done a service learning project, it wasn't me, it wasn't something that I would think about, it wasn't something that I had the confidence to do. To go in there and say yeah, I am going to help. But if you don't recognize that role in yourself, you are not going to be able to share it with anybody else. [The service learning] was important, because of what it has done for me. It is still important to me and it changed me so much. Your priorities changed. If I had to do a service project before ABEL I would have, but it would not have lasted very long. No, we wouldn't have known how to do it? It wouldn't be the same.

Robert's View of Service Learning: an ABEL State of Mind: Lost and Found! [service learning project]. I learned a lot that day. It was fun because I got to teach kids something that I had learned and experienced myself. Well, hopefully, so in the event that one of them got lost, they could at least survive. It makes you feel happy in that you helped someone. Yes, but you gain more on the end as a person. I know that I can take what I learned in ABEL and apply it to other things. It is learning to get along, sharing moments with that person, and respecting each other within the moment. It would not have been the same. Yes, to do it successfully we needed ABEL moments, like Kidston Leadership Retreat [three days of initiative challenges to build team and develop leadership skills]. Yes, it still could have been done, but it wouldn't have been of the same quality at all. To do it effectively yes, you needed the ABEL state of mind. I always reflect back on ABEL.

Skye's View of Service Learning: Service Takes Experience: The Sir Charles Tupper "Peaceful Schools" service project would not have worked without Kidston leadership retreat. No, because it takes the experience we had, to have it in our own mind. It was the ripple effect, like what you do carries on to other people, which carries on to other people and so on. If you are involved in something and you have fun doing it and you have the experience, then other people will feel the genuine, authentic feelings that you have. There was a piece of the [ABEL] experience and the authenticity in every project we did, just different levels. Yes, and it is genuine and if you act on how you really feel, you can't go wrong. We realized we could have an affect and a role in other peoples' lives.

Brian's View of Service Learning: You Needed ABEL: [laughing] No, I think ABEL is a bit more than an outdoor course. You needed the outdoors to get to the service; just doing the service itself was not enough. The outdoors and adventure built the group, allowed you a place to grow safely, the service allowed you the opportunity to put yourself, the curriculum of leadership to the test in a place where it mattered. That statement really sums up the ABEL experience and connects the last piece of the puzzle. Service learning for me made the material/evaluation feel more relevant in comparison to other subject areas. There is also the rewarding aspect of it. The initiatives and outdoor ed. definitely cultivated and developed leadership skills, but in relation to the service learning, it was more the knowledge and experience that we gained from being "out there." There was certainly the belief that ABEL had something unique to offer the community. I can't think of a group that would be better equipped and have the ability to deliver the service learning projects that we did. I don't think that ABEL would have been as effective at the service learning at the beginning of the year. We needed time to come together as a group, to develop that supportive network, and for people to learn and gain confidence in their abilities. Without that time we would just have been a group of acquaintances trying to do service learning, but it wouldn't have been nearly as successful. [In first term] we wouldn't have been able to develop ourselves individually and as a group first. The energy, commitment and belief largely came out of having a sense of community and the confidence in oneself to deliver these projects. To a certain extent yes you need to create community. As individuals, it was much easier to explore what that environment was, due to the support from our peers. Then we were able to extend that "micro-environment" or framework out into the community.

Experiential Voices--Lessons Pushing the Boundaries of Learning

Knowing their abilities before they approached community needs allowed the ABEL students a confidence in designing a community project, serving others, and an awareness of what they really learned through reflection. For service learning to be effective, students need to be prepared for responsibility by having them experience various roles of leadership and community involvement. This allowed students to develop themselves as community members first within their class of peers. It became clear that the students valued being prepared, and this gave them confidence to commit themselves energetically and passionately to their project. Service learning enabled them to transfer their skills and knowledge (across the curriculum), and thus, test the authenticity of a leadership curriculum. ABEL was essential for quality service learning to occur for my students. It allowed them to develop an ABEL "state of mind" that prompted them to share their positive experiences through the "ripple effect." When the students witnessed the impact, they were empowered because they experienced the results of their efforts. This empowerment was due to the ownership and pride they had for their project creations. The accomplishment of the project was tangible for my students. The success of the service learning experience was based upon a caring ethic, and the students knew intimately that support was always available from their classmates. The greatest accomplishment as a class was their ability to "reach community" within a high school setting. This allowed students to learn trust among their peers in ABEL. Without this prior experience base to draw from, service learning would not have been the same. ABEL invited students to the challenge and adventure of serving in the community--pushing the boundaries of our conceptual understanding of life-long learning.

Experiential Lessons

It is the people, not the curriculum, which makes the educational journey an enriching adventure. Curriculum becomes the "meeting place" where we can engage in learning. The students at my school wanted something new, an exciting curriculum challenge, real life challenges. Pedagogical reforms need to go beyond the latest edition of the course text. As educators we must stop putting a new face on the same curriculum and instruction and call it change. We need to hit the core of reform where it impacts the intellect, the emotions, and curious natures of our students. Imagine educational reform built on an outcome of fun, class-community support, and genuine challenges with outcomes designed to improve the quality of another's life. The learning connections cannot be limited to the outcomes of the course.

The methodology of service learning, if implemented properly and carefully researched, may create the bridge between change/reform and sound pedagogic practice that is needed to meet the demands of modern education. For students to assume roles of responsibility in service learning they first have to experience community. Many of them needed to discover their abilities and the confidence to share these skills with others. This element of self-discovery takes time and is a process of risk. The need for a supportive environment is critical for a student. This environment must allow students to be their "true selves" by giving them a "place" to experience "inner growth."

This preparation of self-understanding is what the practice of service learning needs to incorporate to help encourage positive learning experiences and quality service learning experiences. Regardless of how we view our educational system, as it continues to evolve in practice, ABEL has proven to me that the need to care is still central to the needs of many students. We need to bring the "outside" community classroom into the traditional school setting. Teachers engaged in an experiential practice need to revalue the view of this teaching practice and how students learn, outside the confines of school, not to be on the fringe of education. Researchers need to examine the lived experiences, the life world of students, and teachers, engaged in a learning practice that brings the curriculum back into the real world. We need to begin asking questions that allow the human element in learning to resurface and push into our theoretical underpinnings of educational practices, experiential or not.

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