Of all the lessons I have learned at Dartmouth, the most important may be: Try to help change the world for the better; don't try to save it.
The difference between facilitating change and attempting to rescue the world from its ills may seem largely semantic, but there is a difference in meaning, too. Assisting change requires creative thinking, critical analysis and openness to spontaneous innovation. Saving the world, on the other hand, suggests that you are a redeemer who always has the right ideas and methods.
This abstract concept is made much more concrete by a prominent and popular student undertaking: short-term service trips. Whether they are run through the Tucker Foundation or the Dickey Center, found on Idealist.org, a two-week Alternative Spring Break or a three-month-long internship program, at home or abroad, so many of us participate in service experiences because we want to make an effort to end the injustices around us. This is an admirable goal and such service is certainly a choice that Dartmouth students should continue to and be encouraged to make.
Yet, such service projects need to be examined critically, as well. From my own experience and those of my peers, before a trip, we often have unreasonable expectations. We have big plans to solve so many problems that the actual experience can be anti-climactic or even downright frustrating, because we were not able to achieve everything we set out to do.
Had we approached the experience with a more realistic attitude, we might have avoided these letdowns. Forming preconceived and untenable goals before soliciting the advice and assistance of members of the specific communities in which they want to work makes student volunteers less useful to those communities.
Moreover, our expectations are only one facet worth evaluating. Short-term medical trips, for example, are often criticized because so much time and money (that could be used for other aid or developmental ends) is spent on bringing in medical professionals and untrained students who impose logistical burdens on the communities in which they work. They can only provide short term care and may not be responsive to the needs of the community. But non-medical trips can run into similar issues, too.
Fundamentally, these issues can stem from a lack of "critical inquisitiveness" on the part of service-trip volunteers. In my anthropology classes, critical inquisitiveness means understanding the importance of studying culture by taking into account the point of view of its members. Students who do not question the structures of service projects, trips and internships run the risk of privileging their roles as outsiders and forcing ideas or programs that may not be useful to the community. When students feel let down for "not accomplishing much," it is at least partially a result of this imposition of ideas and actions.
I do not mean to suggest that short-term service programs are useless (in fact, I am going on one in a few weeks) or that students do not have creative or effective ideas to offer. Rather, I think it is important to approach such experiences with a critical eye.
Understanding that service trips are meant to be as much a learning experience for us as they are meant to be beneficial to the people we wish to serve is essential. Projects must arise from or address the self-proclaimed needs of the communities in which we work and we must approach our models of short term service programs with a critical yet not dismissive disposition.
Approaching service trips with a plan to "save the world" can be problematic; it can lead us to think we know and can do more than we are actually able to and can lead us to neglect the very people we want to assist. Instead, aim to gain some understanding of complex problems and contribute to a larger effort.
