A Lesson Learned Through Service
By Jonas Hayes

While involved with various service-learning activities at Tusculum, Jonas Hayes (a senior from Akron, Ohio) developed a strong friendship with Bogle Smith, an artisan and former farmer in Greene County. Smith's corn shuck angels, made from a Hawaiian model, fill her apartment. Corn shuck dolls are a traditional folk art.

Through the service-learning component of Tusculum College, students are given a hands-on, practical education and often learn to see new sides of themselves. The idea behind service-learning is that education will help every person come to know what he or she, as an individual, has to offer the community.

Service-learning adds much to one’s education, for students are able to realize the gifts they have to offer to a community or an individual. However, service-learning adds another crucial component to one’s education. Service-learning raises a level of consciousness about what it means to another person to give them any amount of one’s time; it can cause a transformation within the student that cannot be gained in the classroom setting.

This past year I learned this important lesson through conducting a service-learning project of my own. In this project I collected oral histories from the oldest living generation of farmers throughout Greene County, Tennessee. Through these stories I saw a life that was very different from my own, for I grew up without being exposed to many farmers—and I rarely talked at great length with the farmers I did know. However, upon collecting my first oral history with a Greene County farmer, I saw a kind of intelligence that I had not previously encountered. I also saw something which that person had in his life that I desired in my own life. He spoke of his connection to the land and how the land itself had impacted his life so profoundly. Previous to these interviews I conducted, I had absolutely no understanding that anyone could connect himself/herself to the land. As a child, and through part of my adult life, I believed that the only profound, life-changing connections people had were with other people. It was completely alien to me that the land itself could have an influence on another person and that there could be such a spiritual connection between a person and the land.

When I look back on my life I see that I have spent most of my life in buildings, and I realize there is something I am missing out on by spending most of my time under light bulbs.

While in the midst of collecting stories and oral histories from local farmers, one friend had asked me, “How can you relate so well to the farmers when you have lived a totally different life?” When I was asked this question I began to realize not only the importance in talking to someone who is different from you, but also in sharing these experiences with my fellow students and the rest of the community. So I decided to set up experiences for what turned out to be seven of my fellow students to collect stories from Greene County farmers.

Initiating and conducting a project that truly meant a great deal to me gave me a greater understanding of what a person can do with his or her life and how one can affect another’s life. Both the students and the farmers seemed truly blessed in their own way. The farmers were so happy to tell their stories, and they were so happy to know that someone was interested in them for who they were. The students felt lucky that they could be a part of that person’s life while listening to their stories, and that they were able to hear of a life of great beauty and value that was, in fact, very different from their own.