Ethical Wills: Pedagogy, Transformation, and Service

Abstract

Service-learning pedagogy, used in combination with holistic and transformational learning theories, can prepare students to engage older adults in life review with mutually growth-producing results.  One form of service-learning is to teach students to engage in life review with older adults and to compile the information shared in life review conversations into written Ethical Wills.  This is a way of distilling and sharing older adults’ values, insights, life lessons, wisdom, and personal legacy into a document to share with family and friends, and it also teaches students about the merits of both life review and ethical wills to older adults.