By Jesper Damberg
17th November, 2017
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I was provoked into writing this article. Hearing complaints of the weekly ‘service’ burden that is ‘thrown’ upon us as students, I decided to share my subjective view of the manner. To me, the most important part of UWC is learning the value of selfless aid. This is experienced through the ‘so tedious’ weekly service. A negative attitude towards the weekly service ’burden’ may in fact perpetuate an even bigger challenge to the UWC movement. To understand why, we must take a look at what service really is. Kurt Hahn outlined the ideals of UWC education in 1962:
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“I regard it as the foremost task of education to ensure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self-denial, and above all, compassion.”
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Kurt Hahn knew that to achieve all of the above required young people to involve themselves in activities that promote a certain set of values. Instead of passively agreeing with the values of our movement, students are, through service, forced to actively involve themselves in activities that help the local community and promote compassion, understanding and sympathy. In my case, every Wednesday I play football with young men from the local community who have the condition of down-syndrome. By experiencing the joy of helping others unconditionally, I cultivate compassion. Rather than finding it a midweek burden, I look forward to the activity the same way I used to looked forward to football practice back home. Reflecting over my life before arriving at an UWC, I understand what made Kurt Hahn notice the decline of compassion in modern youth. Indeed, I had never been introduced to activities that relied solely on helping others before UWC. Yet I guess this serves evidence that our movement is still special and that it continues to be as relevant in its mission today as when Hahn founded Atlantic College in 1962.
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Now, it is therefore odd to hear “how am I to do well in academia if I have to do all this [explicit content] every week?” or “I hate CAS. it takes so much time!” If you “prioritise” academic subjects or napping above weekly service, then it is clear that you will not cultivate the most integral part of our education: compassion.
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That being said, to attend service activities without genuine interest undermines the educational purpose as well. It happens that students choose particular services that improve their future application for university. This trend undermines the very learning process of service. We can argue that such an attitude is put on us by societal pressures or that the IB itself demands such mindset, but we attend UWCs because we are ready to take individual responsibility: I believe most of us are capable to rid ourselves of such a cynical approach to service if we try.
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Yet, we still see students prioritise the Internationale Baccalaureate above the UWC experience and why is this? Well, we would be lying to ourselves if we claimed that no UWC student attend our colleges due to the attractive Davis Scholarship, the advantageous International Baccalaureate or just the ‘leg up’ that the United World Colleges label gives you in most admission processes. It seems that the International Baccalaureate has grown into a stamp of approval that universities look for and it is only natural that this attract some very academically focused students to our schools. But is this ideal? It seems worthwhile to ask the question: does the IB allow our movement to mould some of the brightest minds of the future or does it perpetuate a toxic atmosphere undermining the sincerity of our communities?
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There are many ways to think about this. One could argue that if UWC is not able to attract the brightest young minds in the world, how will we ever realise our aspirations of changing it for the better? By attracting this ‘academic elite’, we can elicit the leaders of tomorrow with an unwavering desire to fight evil with good. Indeed, only by luring students with promises of a recognized academic and extracurricular programme can we realise the ambitions of our movement. Or one could argue the exact opposite. For instance, one could say that the students who joined the movement dreaming of the green university quads are likely to forget the words of the mission statement as soon as they are freed from the burden of the mandatory CAS programme ‘forcing’ them to aid the local community. If this is true, then it is unlikely that the movement will be able to steer the future of the world in any direction at all. Though these are just two extremes, they raise an important question: Is it possible to find a middle ground? I do believe so, but it requires a more realistic attitude. We can demand a complete restructuring of the International Baccalaureate, that will probably prove futile. We can completely reject the IB as compatible with our movement, that will leave us without much academic recognition by many universities. Ultimately, it is up to us as individuals to find the middle ground. To balance our academics with our CAS, and to do so in a way that allows us to engage genuinely in our education.
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We cannot blame students for neglecting service due individual ambitions. Individual ambition belongs at UWC, but it should, like the mission of our own movement, be a strive for a better world, not an aim for admission to a prestigious college. When service becomes a burden, then we know that it is time for reflection. [/aesop_content]
