In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer

Extended Comments:
This week for my blog I have decided to use Amanda's blog as my extended comments blog.  In Amanda's blog she discusses how at her church there is a youth ministry group that is very involved in the community and in the church.  Also during Holy Week this youth ministry group fasts for 24 hours and they sleep on the church floor to get a feel for what it is like to live on the streets.  After I read this I remembered that my friend, who is also part of her church's youth group, would have to sleep outside in a big open field near the church for an entire weekend.  They weren't allowed to pack clothes and what not but they were allowed to bring tents of course.  I remember all throughout high school she was very excited to participate in this event but I never really understood why she would want to sleep outside for an entire weekend and was only allowed to bring the clothes on their back.  If I was her I would not be able to survive and I would complain the entire time but I never realized how much of an impact this event was.  One year the weather wasn't too great and it rained the entire weekend but they all still managed to participate because they knew how important it was and get a feel for what it was like to live on the streets for an entire weekend.
I believe these church groups do a very nice job of getting kids involved in the community and helping others.  There are many kids out there who don't realize that there are a lot of people out there who suffer in some way every day and we don't realize that and I think there aren't enough kids out there who are thankful for what they have.  I 100% agree with Amanda on how no matter what type of service learning someone does it will always benefit either tremendously or just a little bit to someone.
The service learning that we are doing in class has made me aware of so many things that goes on in public schools.  The school that I am in now is drastically different from my own elementary school.  At George West Elementary there are mostly African Americans and Hispanic students where as in my elementary school, 95% of the students were white.  At first I was a little uncomfortable with the change and I felt as though I didn't fit in but now I love the students that I work with and they enjoy having me in their classroom and that makes me feel like I'm a huge help to them.  This website shows the benefits of being involved in the community whether it's for a student, a faculty member or just a regular community citizen.  As Kahne and Westheimer state, it is very important for people to get involved and make a difference in your own community because you never know how much you could change or help someones life.
In class I would like to discuss what other types of service learning projects people have been involved in.  If they were involved in any others, did they enjoy them as much as they enjoy the service learning project we are doing now?  Also another interesting point that I noticed in this article was that it talked about how at some high schools they had to do 75 hours of community service before graduating.  Do you think that's too much?  Do you think all high school's should do this but set a low minimum number of hours such as maybe 10 hours?  What are your thoughts?