Rekindling the Love of Learning through Service-learning

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This paper explores how critical service-learning can help to rekindle students’ love of learning by reorienting their attention from an instrumental ‘having mode’ to an existential ‘being mode’ of engagement with their education. Drawing on Dewey’s conception of education as intelligent growth aimed at sovereignty, and Fromm’s distinction between ‘having’ and ‘being’, we situate our analysis within the Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics’ IiNtetho zoBomi (isiXhosa for Conversations About Life), a community-engaged ethics course at Rhodes University. We argue that service-learning, when designed as a pedagogy of being, bridges the gap between thought and action, inviting students to experience education as a process of self-formation and the cultivation of personal sovereignty rather than as a means to certification or employment. Through reciprocal mentoring relationships with primary-school learners in local fee-exempt schools, dialogical learning, and reflective practice, students are encouraged to confront the social, psychological, and structural forces that shape their attention, values, and sense of purpose. The paper locates these pedagogical efforts within the broader context of systemic inequality, consumer capitalism, and technological distraction, which together compromise students’ capacity for sustained, meaningful attention. Ultimately, we present IiNtetho zoBomi as a hopeful intervention. This concrete practice enables our students to recover the ethical and humanising potential of education by connecting their learning to life, community, and the cultivation of autonomy. While acknowledging the systemic obstacles that limit such transformation, we contend that service-learning remains a vital practice for cultivating humanity through higher education.

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