Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Post 1a: Masucci and Renner
Discuss any experience you have had with service learning (either as a teacher or as a student). What did you take away from the experience? What could have made it better? What stood out to you related to the framework that Matt and I constructed or the problematics we discussed? How could some of these problematics be overcome in our K-12 classrooms? (If at all?)
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In the fall of my first year teaching, I wanted to expand my second and third grade students' viewpoints of our community. Living in Shelbyville for only a few months myself, I knew little about the inside needs of our community but felt compelled to show my kids that there was another side to town that they didn't often see. I contacted Operation Care, our local thrift store/soup kitchen. My original plan was for my class to serve the homeless the yearly Thanksgiving lunch that the kitchen hosts. I was then unaware of such rules that children under a certain age cannot serve food, etc., so the plan changed to providing entertainment while people ate. Being the perky, enthusiastic new teacher that I was, this sounded like a perfect idea. For several weeks, our class practiced a plethora of Thanksgiving songs and rehearsed a play reenacting the first Thanksgiving. I tried to tie as much content into our time as possible.
Finally, the day of our field trip arrived and we set off for downtown Shelbyville. As we entered the kitchen, my students' faces were wary and unsure as older, haggard faces met theirs. For the next hour or so, my class performed our songs and play. The kitchen filled up as hungry people filtered inside looking for a meal. They were all quite surprised at the rousing entertainment being provided, but for the most part people seemed to enjoy it. As soon as our act was over, we said a chorus of goodbyes and loaded the bus to head back to school.
Of course, I was very proud of my students and they seemed very proud of themselves. As we discussed our trip back at school, students shared comments like, "When we walked in, people looked sad, but by the time we left, a lot of them were smiling." More comments included statements such as, "I didn't know people looked like that in Shelbyville."
As I reflected back on the experience, I'm glad we took our trip but I wish I had done more. My kids experienced the kitchen, but they really didn't experience communication with the people. I don't know if it was because I was a new teacher and scared of what might happen, but I ushered my students out as soon as we were done without allowing them time to interact with the people there. So much more could have been learned through conversations if I had allowed them to happen.
I haven't done this project again, but I would like to sometime. I would make sure to have serious a discussion in our classroom on what kinds of questions were or were not appropriate. I would try to find enough volunteers to accompany us there to help students in their discussions. I think I had the right idea, but next time, there will be some major tweaking done.
In the Masucci, Renner paper, I connected to the quote, "Service learning...becomes nothing more than a meaningless feature of the status quo and loses its potential for turning students into agents of social change (p.3)." With my field trip to Operation Care, I was so focused on having students feel good about themselves, I put less focus on how they could actually make a difference in the lives of the people they came in contact with even after our project was done. I want all of my students to learn that they have the power to become "agents of social change."
I hesitate to call the experience I am going to describe a "service learning project" because at the time I had not even heard of the term. After learning a little about service learning I realized my attempt leaves a lot to be desired. I took a group of high school students to visit the St. Vincent DePaul campus in Louisville. We spent several hours in preparing for our trip. We discussed stereotypes about homeless people, causes of homelessness and even did some role playing. The day went well and I was really impressed with the insights of the students. What I now realize is the potential for this experience to continue to offer moments of learning throughout the semester. What the project needed was a more thorough follow up. The next time I develop a service learning project, I will carefully plan the follow up component. Some ideas I have gotten thus far center around the student sharing his experience with others in an interactive manner and revisiting the project at regular intervals. The concept that stood out most with me in your paper is that of partnership with the organization to be served. By seeing the project as a "partnership" between two entities we acknowledge the value of both parties and appreciate the fact that we will receive as much or more from the project than we give. In the area of teacher preparation for service learning projects, a paper such as yours, could serve as a "template" for service learning projects. This would alleviate the need for teachers to "re-invent the wheel".
While in high school, I was in what used to be FHA and we discussed and tried to set up a program that would allow use to as high school seniors walk over to one of the elementary schools in the county and do a tutoring program with the school. We strated to get the program in the works with a teacher representative but were unable to get the approval from the board for it. The program is now in full swing and offered as a course at the high school. But since we were unable to get the program started that year our faculty representative allowed us other community work options in which we worked with the county to provide other activites for the students in the community. The service that we provided at that time was not what you might tie to learning although it did allow us to further determine what type of class we wanted to set up. It gave us to a chance to reflect and realize what it would take to set up a program.
I too hesitate to call my limited experience an experience in service learning, because it too had my heart in the right place but did little to really connect my children to the community around them. I was a Sunday school teacher in a small hometown church right after moving back from Tennessee. I was very much a part of educating the young children in the church ranging in ages from 4-8 or 9 years old. After having a discussion with my charges during the Sunday morning service (during the Thanksgiving holiday), we decided to take up a project with the local nursing home. The kids made 1-3 cards that each would be responsible for giving to a patient of their choosing, and we rehearsed Christmas carols to sing as we went through the halls. The kids even took up a donation to buy small things of candy to give to those who could have it.
The day came we were to go the nursing home and the kids really performed well. The residents seemed to enjoy our company and the kids seemed to have a good time.
When we got back to the church, the older kids and some of the younger ones made comments like "the older people seemed lonely","why did they look so sad", and "we need to help those older people more". Yes that was the point at the time,but as I look back I realize that this could have been so much more.
We continued to do this project for 2 more Christmas' but I realize too that it should have been a year around project. All to often the elderly are discriminated against and this demographic group is all to often forgotten.
In the Masucci/Renner paper, I connected with the thought saying there is a"widening chasm between rich and poor,...education may be failing to connect students to the realities of social difference". I think this is so true. Educators seem to be educating the kids with no real connections of the social realities. WE are not all college bound, we are all not perfect and we aren't all going to be rich and famous. My teenagers see only through a tiny lense and do not attempt to widen the scope to see the whole picture. Getting educators to see this is will be very difficult.Also the money for the reeducating of the teachers is costly and would meet with much resistance. Once the mindset has been established that all students will or won't do this, or the stereotypes are there, its hard to teach them new tricks. The beginning will have to be with us younger teachers. Show the students of all ages that they do have a voice and can help to make a difference-they can be "agents of social change".
Good discussion here folks. I can really relate to your struggle of finding out new information and recognizing that we can do even more than we have done. That said, you should all relish in the fact that you are connecting your kids to the community—doing very real work and serving very real lives, as we will do at VOA. That you recognize there are even more critical ways to go about it next time around reveals the extent to which you have become a reflective educator. What are some of the ways we can apply these lessons learned to this service experience at VOA?
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