What does it mean?

To me, service learning is about learning through actions that benefit others instead of studying or taking in comforts for yourself. In many ways, service learning is a very useful tool for conditioning one's self to learn from every thing they do. Unfortunately, many people take this wonderful tool and enforce it as scripture. It's one thing to volunteer to learn from such things, but most often people are forced to participate (whether it's community service due to crime or the arbitrary school assignment). When service learning is forced in such a way, it is usually the community that suffers for it. In a mentoring situation, such as the one we are soon to become a part of, this can lead to a spoiled relationship with the mentee and it is the mentee who, in the end, suffers. In other circumstances, it just plain looks bad if "volunteers" are griping about helping the community; people attribute it to the community itself and not the situation of the person. I don't think service learning should be expected in any way; it is something that one must come across and choose for one's self.