4. Reflect on the Experiences for Growth and Learning

St. Paul

 

Interfaith reflection is when all the pieces of the event come together: the shared value of service, interfaith understanding, and personal transformation. It provides opportunities to explore and articulate meaning in the experience, including how that experience connects to young people’s own identity, their faith tradition, and the underlying social issues in the community.

 

Reflection builds on an experiential learning philosophy. Classroom learning assumes: Think, then do something. Experiential learning assumes: Do, then think about it (and learn from it). In this way, the learning grows out of the ways that young people understand, interpret, and put their experiences into a broader context.

Designing Your Reflection Opportunities

  • Tie the reflection processes to the service, learning, and growth goals that you established during the investigation phase of your process.
  • Invite participants to be engaged in selecting, designing, and leading reflection times.
  • Plan for reflection to include more than talking about feelings; it should involve challenging thinking, analysis, problem solving, and interpretation so that participants integrate the experience into their learning and identity.
  • Allow plenty of time for reflection. Leaving reflection to just the end of a long day of service isn't enough. The process of allowing youth time to practice their learning skills, integrate information, work through differences, and reach satisfying conclusions is too important to short-change in that way. Reflection may actually take more time than the service . . . and it's well worth it in terms of growth, learning, and commitment.

Consider a Variety of Types of Reflection

Offer a variety of reflection approaches and activities that are appropriate for different styles of learning and utilize different skills. (Some of the results of reflection can also then be used as part of the demonstration and celebration phase.) Here are some examples:

  • Verbal reflection—Group discussions, dialogues with community members or experts, role plays, group simulation experiences.

  • Written reflection—Worksheets, journaling, essays, articles for organizational newsletters or community newspapers, blogs, or poetry

  • Artistic reflection—Drawing or painting, drama or music, scrapbooks, bulletin boards, video shows, or a Web site.

Three Guiding Questions

Three questions can be helpful in thinking through the flow of a reflection process (whether written, verbal, or in another approach:

  • What? Begin by articulating your experiences and your feelings about the activities. Encourage participants to examine what happened within and around themselves, as individuals and as a team. What were their thoughts, experiences, feelings, hopes, and concerns?
  • So what? Interpret the experience and formulate new concepts out of that experience. During this phase, bring experiences into dialogue with social trends, experts, classroom learning, literature, religious or philosophical writings, or other information that is relevant to your specific learning and development goals. This may also be a time when you invite historians, theologians, philosophers, neighborhood activists, story-tellers, and others to inform your perspectives on the issues. You may also introduce readings, videos, and other media to stimulate dialogue, such as dialogue about the value of service in the sacred texts of a wide range of religious traditions (PDF). This new information will be particularly relevant and meaningful after after you've been engaged in the community will likely be more meaningful and stimulate more dialogue.
  • Now what? This final phase focuses on integrating learning so it affects future actions. It may involve individual, whole-group (or subgroup) commitments to follow through with ongoing service or activism and continue addressing the issues. It should also solidify how the knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Some Sample Reflection Questions

What?

  • What did you do?
  • What did you see, hear, smell, taste?
  • What did you think?
  • What did you feel?
  • What happened?

So What?

  • What does it mean?
  • What difference did our actions make? For whom? How?
  • Why do you think things are the way they are?
  • What social issues are involved in the service we peformed?
  • What stories in your tradition or personal history help us understand how we respond to these issues?
  • What is unique and distinct about how we understand these issues in each of our traditions?

Now What?

  • What changes will you make because of what you learned and experienced?
  • How will you apply what you’ve learned to your everyday life and learning?
  • How will you apply what you’ve learned to the broader social and political issues that you care about?
  • What implications does this experience have for future interfaith service-learning we might do?

Using Social Media in Reflection

  • Set up a private group on Bridge Builders (for interfaith service-learning), Facebook, MySpace, Ning, or another social media site, and have all youth join it. Then pose questions (and have youth pose questions) for reflection. Have youth find and upload links to online resources, videos, and other material that helps with reflection.
  • Encourage participants to share their reflections through their own social media sites, and link to your program site.
  • Identify online communities that are addressing the underlying issues or concerns of your service-learning project.
  • Encourage participants to share their experiences, perspectives, and questions with the advocates and experts who are part of that online community (keeping in mind, of course, appropriate precautions to ensure participants’ safety).

More Resources on Reflection