Talking Point #6 - In the Service of What?, Kahne: Quotes/Connection

This quote in particular resonated with me the most. Mainly because it reminded me immediately of our service learning, 

"Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing rich educational experiences for students at all levels o f schooling. Service learning makes students active participants in service projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of students." 

That is exactly the purpose of our service learning. I know, it seems obvious, but I didn't think of it this way until reading this article. Yes, our service enhances the communities in which we are helping, we are active in our service, we are effective and helpful, and at the same time we are furthering our academic goals to become educators. 

This article made me that much more proud to do what we are doing.

"Ms. Adams' students, by contrast, began their work with a systematic and critical analysis ofthe causes ofhomelessness and ofthe strategies employed to prevent it. The class discussed the growing economic disparity between rich and poor, the impact o f homeless ness on children, and the difficult balance between individual rights and collective responsibility. Students read stories by homeless children and wrote essays assessing the impact of homelessness on people like themselves."

This most accurately relates to the process we have followed. Through our curriculum we have learned certain things that we will apply when in the classroom. I know many of us have shared stories on how what we have learning in class and through our readings has already been applied in our SL projects. For instance, my FIRST day I had a Delpit moment. A student wasn't following with the class during reading time...I almost asked, "Alex, is it time to be reading?" Disgusted with myself, I quickly changed my tonality and phrasing. I didn't even think I had a communication issue that Delpit talks about until I applied it to a real life situation.

"After they returned, the students' perspectives on these elementary school children had changed. They were "surprised at the children's responsiveness and their attentiveness," they found the children to be "extremely polite and surprisingly friendly," and they discovered that they "listened well and had excellent behavior." One student wrote, "Everyone at the school had good manners, and [ think more highly of [the neighborhood] now." The experiential and interpersonal components ofservice learning activities can achieve the first crucial step toward diminishing the sense of"otherness" that often separates students-particularly privileged students-from those in need. In so doing, the potential to develop caring relationships is created." 

I found this part rather amusing. Maybe it was naive of me, but before I started my SL project, I didn't make any prejudgements on the demeanor of my students that I hadn't met. I wasn't nervous because I thought that they would be rude but rather I wasn't sure how they would react to having another adult in the room (more specifically -- a white male authoritative figure). I didn't think that they were going to love me or that they were going to hate me -- I just simply didn't know what to expect. Similar to the students in the article, I was relieved to be liked and accepted.   

Here is a picture of where I do my service learning -- Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary
Click the picture and it will send you to their website. If that doesn't work I've provided the link bellow.

Dr. MLK Elementary