Although family illness truncated my COPSL time this week, I got to see the keynote speaker on Monday. I came away struck once again with how much community-based research and service learning parallels the core philosophies of HCI Design. Keith Morton — a Providence College English professor — is interested in cultural narrative and how it changes through community service. He has integrated a service learning component into his courses for a neighborhood (Smith Hill) adjacent to campus.
Morton begins by talking about the starfish story, a common analogy for why we help others. In that story, an idealistic do-gooder walks across the beach after a storm and tosses starfish back into the sea. Thousands more await certain death since it is unlikely this one person can save them all. The payoff line is an answer to the question about why the do-gooder hurls starfish when it isn’t going to make a difference: “It made a difference to this one.” The take-home here is that we are supposed to feel good about doing something even if we can’t possibly solve the larger problem by ourselves.
Morton’s critique (.doc) was actually a rant penned to a colleague after hearing the starfish story one too many times, especially in context of community service. That colleague happened to be an editor of a journal and tacked the rant onto the end of an issue, giving “starfish hurling and community service” a life of its own. In this critique, Morton notes the ways in which this analogy is simple-minded and short-sighted:
- The problem (starfish beached after a storm) is apolitical. Most problems are seeped in politics.
- The benefactors (starfish) have no voice. The story avoids the reality of having to decide who gets our help.
- Beached starfish may be part of a greater ecological cycle of life. Saving one starfish may kill a couple birds.
- The story instructs us to work from our heart and not our head. The shoreline of dying starfish is not infinite; some intelligent organizing could prove more effective.
- Individual acts of kindness are celebrated, not community working together.
There were a number of great diagrams and information as Morton spent an hour talking about service, community and knowledge. One of his publications — “Addams, Dewey and Day: the Emergence of Community Service in America, 1885-present.” (Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning; 4 Fall 1997: 137-149.) — talks about the history of settlement houses. He describes the intention of Jane Addams as establishing a place for “interpretation,” not about helping others. In order to do the most good, we need to understand things in a particular social context. Morton relates this lesson to modern day by talking about recent research that connects test scores in schools with high stability and low mobility, suggesting that if we addressed how to make schools more stable we would improve the effectiveness of our teachers.
As an educator steeped in service learning, Morton has seen a common pattern in the responses his students have to working in the schools of Smith Hill. First, they see the problem as one of community and parent neglect. Then, after getting to know the parents a bit, the blame shifts to a general ignorance about the problem itself. (“If only they knew, everything would be better.”) Next, the authorities become the oppressors, and the solution is calling them to task. That evolves into understanding the problem as political in nature, drawing the conclusion that service makes no difference. It is at this point, Morton says, many people drop out. If they stick with it, the next response is to see the problem as too complicated to solve, something hampered by institutional inertia. Finally, the student achieves the ideal realization: the primary value is in the relationships. This transformation from blaming to inquiring about the environment takes a long time.
My favorite bit was a quote from Nelle Morton’s (no relation) The Journey is Home: 
