Community Reflection

Civics is a Grade 10 course where students learn about our political system, how public decisions are made, and the entitled rights and responsibility for a citizen who legally belongs to a country. In a course like civics, students critically investigate local, national, and worldwide issues with a political perspective. One aspect of the curriculum is personal action on civic issues, by which means students are to analyze a civic issue and develop an action plan to address it. Through this, our class worked with an organization named DILA (A Day of Information for a Lifetime of Action), an organization that aims towards engaging youth in Ottawa by encouraging hands-on engagement in their communities, addressing civic issues that individuals are passionate towards, and to increase the importance of the democratic decision-making process. A DILA project main objective is to simply empower the young millennials, by giving them a chance to let their ideas, imagination, and voice shine.

The experience I encountered during the service learning project was great. Throughout the weeks allocated for the service learning project, I tutored grade two and three pupils from three different schools under two agencies. The names of the agencies are Lion Catcher and MLK Community Center. This project gave me the opportunity to work with little kids for a long time. This provided me with the privilege to help and work with people who are enthusiastic about learning. Through my colleagues and me, we were able to achieve the goal of the service learning project. One of the goals is to work with minorities who needs help. This goal does not benefit our clients only but us also, it helped us organize and improve the way we think about supporting our client and managed good clinical judgment.

From the reading “From an Ethic of Altruism to Possibilities of Transformation in Teacher Candidates Community Involvement” by Solomon, Manoukian, and Clarke. I thought the narratives were the highlight to the reading. I felt I could connect with previous teacher candidate’s experiences, but also learn from them. In this reading two approaches are discussed about student’s perceptions of servicing learning either a charity orientation or a change orientation. From this reading, I realized that I am taking on a change orientation. Though I am at my community centre once a week I can see the difference the other teacher candidates and I have made. In the reading, it talks about a change orientation which involves developing caring relationships

It is also a “boundary spanning” activity in that it requires active involvement from people both within and outside of the classroom context, often resulting in participant contributors who represent a variety of generations, ethnicities, social groups, and experience levels (Billig and Furco, 2002, p.vii). Service-learning is designed to reduce the boundaries between an institutional campus environment and the community around it. It is designed to connect learning to real experience through service and reflection (Ball and Schilling, 2006; Becker, 2000). As a baseline to facilitate this development, service-learning is distinct from other types of community service and civic engagement experiences in that the service-learning experience must not only have a service and reflective component but also be clearly tied to the curriculum through learning objectives and theoretical underpinnings (Bloomquist, 2015; Pritchard, 2001). As Barbara Holland, former Director of the U.S. National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, shared, “Service-learning is all in the hyphen. It is the enrichment of specific learning goals through structured community service opportunities that respond to community-identified needs and opportunities.” (Kenworthy-U’Ren, Taylor, and Petri, 2006: 121).

The critical difference of service learning and the traditional learning style is that students are learning and addressing real needs in the community. Which connect students to the community through meaningful interactions with others, safety, and educational needs. This specific course includes readings, discussions, and activities to support

We will house kids who are products of all facets of society. For example, children of immigrants, children who have affluence, children who are loved and cared for greatly and children who may be in a situation of neglect. Teaching is about reaching out to each student, helping them to overcome challenges and be the best that they can be. It seems that an increasing number of these challenges may not be academic in nature. I believe that conquering these challenges actually beings with the little community forming within our classrooms. As teachers we have the obligation to teach our students how to have respect and compassion for one another. How to be on the same team and work together, no matter each person’s background.

Service Learning is learning through experience to gain sociological observation, concepts, and theories so I decide to do my service learning hours in one of the two high schools that is part of the Oceanside Unified School District. The name of the school is called El Camino High School. El Camino High School is a high school that is located at 400 Rancho Del Oro Drive in Oceanside, California. It has over 3,000 students currently attending. The school’s mascot is the “Wildcat” and their colors are gold and red. El Camino High School is a public school that is part of a system of free public education that is maintained at a public expense for the education of students who are part of that community or district. El Camino High School is a place is a public school where students are coming out of middle school and are

I found Kathleen Cahill’s presentation on service learning to be very interesting. I have always been aware of how important it is to do service for your community. In high school, I had to complete 100 hours of service over the four-year span. This increased my awareness of the importance of service, and showed me a variety of organizations the exist in Erie, PA. However, I was never aware of the high level of poverty that exists in Erie until I saw Kathleen Cahill’s presentation. I was shocked to learn that the number of those living in poverty in the City of Erie, is around 30%. This statistic made me realize even more the importance of service, especially in the Erie community.

I participated in service learning at Fraser school in Richfield. Starting in September I helped out in a toddler age classroom every Thursday. Fraser school is a preschool setting for infants and toddlers. Besides getting the children kindergarten ready and offering a somewhat typical day of daycare/school, Fraser offers occupational, physical, and speech therapy. Some of the children have disabilities and some do not, Fraser is not discriminatory and they provide care for anyone. Some of the things I did in the classroom were prepare snack and lunch for the children, play games, participate in art projects, music, and reading, and play games with the children. The two teachers really appreciated my help, as I was provided an extra hand for them while they prepared daily activities. Playtime was usually hectic for the group and it needed to be closely monitored. I was also able to keep the children safe and keep a close eye on the total of twelve toddlers during playtime. My experiences at Fraser helped me understand many topics we talked about in our Intro to Sociology class. A few topics that stood out to me the most were the idea of social integration and many of the functions of the education system, the three stages in the development of self, institutional discrimination with minority and group divisions.

And as I joined our school’s leadership training program, it opened my eyes to a whole new way of learning . In that classroom, I was taught not by reading an article, but through demonstration and experience. This program helped me become a better leader and inspired me to be to be more active in society, standing up if you believe something is wrong.. Through the various community service projects that we do, it helps me understand that even though I might think that my life is difficult at times, others have it worse. I help prepare our school’s annual Honokaa Thanksgiving Dinner that feeds up to 900 people each year. We try to help those who struggle to provide their own meals for the holidays. Our leadership training program also set up our community’s Relay for Life, last year raising $10,000 towards the cause. We also organize and set up our school’s most important events such as Homecoming and Prom which many students create memories that last a

As I have spent my last four years of high school at North Gwinnett High School, I have been immersed with many opportunities to involve myself in community involvement to better the community in a place where I call home and into different corners of the world. Through boughts of community service and volunteer work within my community, I have not only gained a new, fresh image of what a community really is, but a new hope for a bigger and brighter future. Because of my experiences with volunteer work with Happy Feat, North Gwinnett High School Girls’ Lacrosse Camp, and food packs, I have learned new routes of leadership and gained new perspectives from those experiences.

Life is filled with different types of experiences that enhance the growth of an individual. One particular life experience that have impacted me both positively and negatively was the year when I was selected as Single Service Chair for University of Nevada Circle K International. It is my duty to planned and executed one single service project that would impact the club as well as the community. It was a challenging position, but the skills that I gained are crucial to my development as a leader and as an active citizen. Since service was the main element focus, I was able to build on the previous service events that I have participated and expand it to a more ‘civil engagement’ approach. For the service event, I wanted to give a chance

According to Kathleen Flecky and Lynn Gitlow, service-learning is defined as, “learning that occurs in experiences, reflection, and civic engagement” (Flecky & Gitlow, 2011). In recent years more universities are implementing service learning into their curriculum. A key concept of service learning is civic responsibility. Civic responsibility can simply be defined as your responsibilities as a citizen. As will be shown later in this paper, service learning can have many benefits not only to a student, but also to the community members

The Society for Experiential Education defines service learning as, “any carefully monitored service experience in which a student has intentional learning goals and reflects actively on what he or she is learning throughout the experience” (Staton 1). Service learning is a great opportunity to get extra learning experiences while also experiencing the community around the universities campus. “Service learning allows students to apply what they are learning from their instructors, peers, and readings to genuine tasks that occur outside the four walls of the classroom while simultaneously helping others” (Staton 1). Universities are using service learning to expand beyond the classroom and provide students with experiences that will

The term ‘‘service-learning’’ means a method (A) under which students or participants learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that (i) is conducted in and meets the needs of a community; (ii) is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program, and with the community; and (iii) helps foster civic responsibility; and (B) that (i) is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students, or the educational components of the community service program in which the