Abstract
In this study, we explore the theoretical underpinnings and the practical implementation of a one-year student-led and student-centred service-learning course called “IiNtetho zoBomi”, translated from isiXhosa – one of South Africa’s twelve official languages – as “conversations about life”. The Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics, Department of Philosophy, at Rhodes University in South Africa, has been developing and implementing this course for the past decade in response to widespread calls for transforming South African universities and producing socially responsible, ethical graduates. “IiNtetho zoBomi” aims to show students how important the life of the mind is for cultivating autonomy and sociality, for bridging the gap between the lives of thought and action; and, by doing this, to show students the intimate relationship between thinking, reading, writing, human freedom, and the ethical life. Relatedly, the course challenges the widespread assumption that education’s aim is capacitation rather than human growth and does so in a genuinely practical way that increases the likelihood of impacting affect and behaviour.