Please respond to the readings in at least 150 words. Follow the guidelines for completing lectures and research before posting your work under the appropriate blog entry.
Student Work
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Service-Learning
You will have two weeks to complete this reading and the exercises in it. Please post your answers to the exercises on the blog no later than April 4th at 1 pm.
Exercise 3.1: Defining Community I think that the definition of a community really depends on the person who is defining it. For someone who grew up in a more rural environment as opposed to urban, his or her definition would be slightly altered. For me, growing in the Bahamas has made me think of community consisting of the entire young population in the island of Nassau. It doesn’t matter what school you attend or where you live, everyone who are in the same age group knows and interacts with each other. Social gatherings are all at the same locations and we have formed this sense of community. Now that I am at Rollins College, I have become apart of a new community, one that is slightly different than what I am used to. Although many people say Rollins is a tiny school, for me it is huge! I graduated with eight students in my class (including me), and have always been used to a tight-knitted community. More specifically, however, I feel like I belong to the art community here. The art department is not all that big, and every time I enter the building I run into someone I know, whether it be a professor or student. In that sense, I feel integrated with a small, tight-knitted community within a larger scale. I have chosen not to belong to the communities that are associated with Greek life. Although it might be just a stereotype, I always viewed sororities as being a way to further segregate a community. Again, this is my assumption because I have not learned too much about the Greek life here at Rollins, but have always had the idea that it would not be a suitable community for me to be apart of.
Exercise 3.3: Situation Analysis The assistant chief was right in insisting that the religions images in the mural be painted over. Religion is something that is very personal and for some, it may be disrespectful for their views for particular religions to be openly expressed through a painting. I feel that religion should be practiced in two places, their specific churches or mosques or in the privacy of one’s home. Many might disagree with me, but growing up in an extremely religious country has made me this way. Even something as simple as walking into the grocery store is a time when you get bombarded with religious posters or people trying to talk to you about God. It is not to say I do not appreciate these religions, but it should be done in a quitter, more respectful manner, in the environment that practices that religion. When one is referring to “I”, it entails you personally as an individual. As soon as the term “We” is put into words, the idea is based around a larger group of individuals, such as a community, a society, or the World. When one is referring to an individual, their specific rights and opinions are only of concern to themselves. When dealing with “we”, however, the group must consider the opinions and rights of others, and must make adjustments in order to arrive at a comparable decision.
Exercise 3.4: Identifying the Seven Cs In the case study, one can notice evidence of consciousness of self, collaboration, common purpose and citizenship. The teacher was consciousness of her time of arrival to the campus, and chose to leave a bit earlier in order to avoid traffic. The idea of collaboration was evident right away when students began walking into the room and seeing their peers. Some new each other right away and others were only vaguely familiar, but nevertheless, by the end of the session everyone was introduced to one another. The classroom was now collaborated into a group. Developing these values of connection is not only something that happens with that specific intent. It is a natural process as well, and human nature seeks creating connections and bonds between other human beings. It is important to consider the seven Cs when working as a citizen learner because it is no longer just “I” to consider, but “we”. Doing group projects is not a simple process, we must learn to make adjustments, have self-awareness of your specific intentions and goals, and then apply those to the group. Having collaborative ideas are always more successful because the end result is a mixture of different people who all contain different opinions and backgrounds. It is arriving at a final decision that is always the most challenging part, however keeping the seven Cs in mind is a useful tool in learning the best ways of collaboration.
Exercise 3.1 To me, a community is a group of people living in a common place who work together and take care of each other. I think of communities this way because when my dad got sick, my neighbors immediately stepped into the picture—bringing my family meals three times a week, giving my sisters and me rides to school and doing just about anything they could to help our family in a time of need. That’s what a community should be about. Communities also give people a sense of belonging and in a lot of ways define who they are or at least help shape who they become. Beyond my neighborhood community at home, I also belong to the Rollins community, the church community, the art community, and the Greek community.
Exercise 3.2 In my ideal learning environment, I am surrounded by an extremely bright yet open-minded group of people who are all intelligent in different areas. Each person brings something to the table but each person is not insistent upon his or her ideas being the “right” ones. There is a teacher who oversees and mediates the group, adding in bits of information or wisdom that we cannot come up with ourselves, but for the most part stays out of the picture, allowing the students to make their own decisions and learn and grow from their mistakes. In my current service-learning environment (with Whispering Oak Elementary) I see a lot of these ideal characteristics. The group that I am working with is very smart yet open-minded and no one person seems to feel like they have better ideas than anyone else. The teacher, Rachel, as well as the Elementary school teacher, are there to oversee our work, but only insert themselves when we need them. The only challenges I can foresee are finalizing the layout/concept of the piece with Bri, Nati and the five children we’re working with and making sure that the kids don’t get ink absolutely everywhere.
Exercise 3.3 - White - Female - Christian - Athletic, mentally sound, passionate - Middle-upper class - 19 - Brown hair, brown eyes, curvy - I like boys.
Strengths: Compared to a lot of people at Rollins, I have very little money, but my family has always afforded me a comfortable lifestyle and taught me the value of a dollar and the value of hard work, and I appreciate them for that. My family is also very spiritual and my faith has helped me get through a lot of trials in my life.
Weaknesses: I was really overweight when I was younger and that bread a lot of anger and insecurity in me that I had to overcome as I got older. Also, being in the middle-upper class, I find that I am constantly surrounded by a lot of materialistic people and I don’t like it at all. My extended family is so poor that they can’t even drive from Tennessee to Georgia to come visit us because the gas money is too much, so it makes me mad when I see people throwing around money like it’s nothing at Rollins. Sometimes I just want to slap some Rollins girls in the face and be like “how can you spend $300 on a shirt? Go travel the world. Donate to a charity. Do something good with your money!” (I know you would never think anyone would complain about being in the middle-upper class but I'm just sayin.. sometimes it's annoying.)
Exercise 3.4 - In my personal opinion, I think that the chief of police insisted that the religious murals in the portrait be painted over because they did not align with his personal beliefs. But with America being the country that it is, this demand was in no way fair. People have the right to speak and write and draw whatever they want to in this country, and religious symbols should not be excluded from that. If he wanted to add his heroes to the wall he is more than welcome, but he can’t tell those people that they can’t draw images of people who they see as heroes. After all, that was the assignment they were given. Ideally, the people should respond to his demand in a non-violent manner but I don’t think that they should be forced to abide by it. (I think they responded correctly in the given situation.) - The “I” of individuality can overlap with the “We” of community easily and effortlessly if all the members of the community are accepting of each individual’s differences. Each person is an individual in their own right—there is no one else in the world exactly like them—but when that person unites with another person or another group of people, they form a group, a community, a “We.” In this case in particular, the success of the community was based upon everyone working together to make something spectacular. The whole group failed unless every individual put their heart and sole into their work and worked together as a team. - I don’t think that anything was missing from the group dynamic. They came together as a group and overcame adversity by putting their heart and soul into the mural that they created. That’s what a group should do. That’s what artists should do.
Exercise 3.5 Consciousness of Self- “The act of putting who we are and what we know into action on behalf of others, and then letting our knowing be, in turn, enhanced and changed by that practice.”
Congruence- the project moved “all of us from I to WE: that is, from experiencing ourselves solely as individuals to understanding that, in community-based learning, the success of any one student is connected to successful engagement with others.”
Commitment- “The students and artists took their collective anger and indignation and put it right back into their work. If the mural was impressive before, it became spectacular in the days that followed…the mural was finished without compromising the original artistic vision of the painters.”
Collaboration- “It mattered that this work was being done. And it mattered that this particular group of people were doing it together.”
Common purpose- “…the cloth covering came off and there it was: a testament to the power of individuals to come together into more than the sum of their parts, to render what was believed to be impossible not only possible, but necessary and human and real.”
Controversy with Civility- “The assembled group thanked the assistant chief for his input, asked him to allow them to get back to their work, and continued. They resisted. No one wanted to stop painting what was becoming a masterwork of culture, history, and the human possibility of all who were involved with it.”
Citizenship- “In many ways, the unfinished mural was already creating a common good by connecting us across gender, age, language, ethnicity and culture.”
By reading this case study and learning about the seven C’s, I have realized that a lot more goes into service learning that I had even imagined before. Service learning isn’t just about giving back to the larger community through your work, it’s about personal growth and being a part of something—a smaller community of sorts. And in order to have a successful service-learning project, each member of this smaller community must play his or her role in the creation of the work.
This post can be completed for Wednesday. ;)
ReplyDeleteExercise 3.1: Defining Community
ReplyDeleteI think that the definition of a community really depends on the person who is defining it. For someone who grew up in a more rural environment as opposed to urban, his or her definition would be slightly altered. For me, growing in the Bahamas has made me think of community consisting of the entire young population in the island of Nassau. It doesn’t matter what school you attend or where you live, everyone who are in the same age group knows and interacts with each other. Social gatherings are all at the same locations and we have formed this sense of community. Now that I am at Rollins College, I have become apart of a new community, one that is slightly different than what I am used to. Although many people say Rollins is a tiny school, for me it is huge! I graduated with eight students in my class (including me), and have always been used to a tight-knitted community. More specifically, however, I feel like I belong to the art community here. The art department is not all that big, and every time I enter the building I run into someone I know, whether it be a professor or student. In that sense, I feel integrated with a small, tight-knitted community within a larger scale. I have chosen not to belong to the communities that are associated with Greek life. Although it might be just a stereotype, I always viewed sororities as being a way to further segregate a community. Again, this is my assumption because I have not learned too much about the Greek life here at Rollins, but have always had the idea that it would not be a suitable community for me to be apart of.
Exercise 3.3: Situation Analysis
ReplyDeleteThe assistant chief was right in insisting that the religions images in the mural be painted over. Religion is something that is very personal and for some, it may be disrespectful for their views for particular religions to be openly expressed through a painting. I feel that religion should be practiced in two places, their specific churches or mosques or in the privacy of one’s home. Many might disagree with me, but growing up in an extremely religious country has made me this way. Even something as simple as walking into the grocery store is a time when you get bombarded with religious posters or people trying to talk to you about God. It is not to say I do not appreciate these religions, but it should be done in a quitter, more respectful manner, in the environment that practices that religion.
When one is referring to “I”, it entails you personally as an individual. As soon as the term “We” is put into words, the idea is based around a larger group of individuals, such as a community, a society, or the World. When one is referring to an individual, their specific rights and opinions are only of concern to themselves. When dealing with “we”, however, the group must consider the opinions and rights of others, and must make adjustments in order to arrive at a comparable decision.
Exercise 3.4: Identifying the Seven Cs
ReplyDeleteIn the case study, one can notice evidence of consciousness of self, collaboration, common purpose and citizenship. The teacher was consciousness of her time of arrival to the campus, and chose to leave a bit earlier in order to avoid traffic. The idea of collaboration was evident right away when students began walking into the room and seeing their peers. Some new each other right away and others were only vaguely familiar, but nevertheless, by the end of the session everyone was introduced to one another. The classroom was now collaborated into a group. Developing these values of connection is not only something that happens with that specific intent. It is a natural process as well, and human nature seeks creating connections and bonds between other human beings. It is important to consider the seven Cs when working as a citizen learner because it is no longer just “I” to consider, but “we”. Doing group projects is not a simple process, we must learn to make adjustments, have self-awareness of your specific intentions and goals, and then apply those to the group. Having collaborative ideas are always more successful because the end result is a mixture of different people who all contain different opinions and backgrounds. It is arriving at a final decision that is always the most challenging part, however keeping the seven Cs in mind is a useful tool in learning the best ways of collaboration.
Exercise 3.1
ReplyDeleteTo me, a community is a group of people living in a common place who work together and take care of each other. I think of communities this way because when my dad got sick, my neighbors immediately stepped into the picture—bringing my family meals three times a week, giving my sisters and me rides to school and doing just about anything they could to help our family in a time of need. That’s what a community should be about.
Communities also give people a sense of belonging and in a lot of ways define who they are or at least help shape who they become. Beyond my neighborhood community at home, I also belong to the Rollins community, the church community, the art community, and the Greek community.
Exercise 3.2
In my ideal learning environment, I am surrounded by an extremely bright yet open-minded group of people who are all intelligent in different areas. Each person brings something to the table but each person is not insistent upon his or her ideas being the “right” ones. There is a teacher who oversees and mediates the group, adding in bits of information or wisdom that we cannot come up with ourselves, but for the most part stays out of the picture, allowing the students to make their own decisions and learn and grow from their mistakes.
In my current service-learning environment (with Whispering Oak Elementary) I see a lot of these ideal characteristics. The group that I am working with is very smart yet open-minded and no one person seems to feel like they have better ideas than anyone else. The teacher, Rachel, as well as the Elementary school teacher, are there to oversee our work, but only insert themselves when we need them. The only challenges I can foresee are finalizing the layout/concept of the piece with Bri, Nati and the five children we’re working with and making sure that the kids don’t get ink absolutely everywhere.
Exercise 3.3
ReplyDelete- White
- Female
- Christian
- Athletic, mentally sound, passionate
- Middle-upper class
- 19
- Brown hair, brown eyes, curvy
- I like boys.
Strengths: Compared to a lot of people at Rollins, I have very little money, but my family has always afforded me a comfortable lifestyle and taught me the value of a dollar and the value of hard work, and I appreciate them for that. My family is also very spiritual and my faith has helped me get through a lot of trials in my life.
Weaknesses: I was really overweight when I was younger and that bread a lot of anger and insecurity in me that I had to overcome as I got older. Also, being in the middle-upper class, I find that I am constantly surrounded by a lot of materialistic people and I don’t like it at all. My extended family is so poor that they can’t even drive from Tennessee to Georgia to come visit us because the gas money is too much, so it makes me mad when I see people throwing around money like it’s nothing at Rollins. Sometimes I just want to slap some Rollins girls in the face and be like “how can you spend $300 on a shirt? Go travel the world. Donate to a charity. Do something good with your money!” (I know you would never think anyone would complain about being in the middle-upper class but I'm just sayin.. sometimes it's annoying.)
Exercise 3.4
- In my personal opinion, I think that the chief of police insisted that the religious murals in the portrait be painted over because they did not align with his personal beliefs. But with America being the country that it is, this demand was in no way fair. People have the right to speak and write and draw whatever they want to in this country, and religious symbols should not be excluded from that. If he wanted to add his heroes to the wall he is more than welcome, but he can’t tell those people that they can’t draw images of people who they see as heroes. After all, that was the assignment they were given.
Ideally, the people should respond to his demand in a non-violent manner but I don’t think that they should be forced to abide by it. (I think they responded correctly in the given situation.)
- The “I” of individuality can overlap with the “We” of community easily and effortlessly if all the members of the community are accepting of each individual’s differences. Each person is an individual in their own right—there is no one else in the world exactly like them—but when that person unites with another person or another group of people, they form a group, a community, a “We.” In this case in particular, the success of the community was based upon everyone working together to make something spectacular. The whole group failed unless every individual put their heart and sole into their work and worked together as a team.
- I don’t think that anything was missing from the group dynamic. They came together as a group and overcame adversity by putting their heart and soul into the mural that they created. That’s what a group should do. That’s what artists should do.
Exercise 3.5
ReplyDeleteConsciousness of Self- “The act of putting who we are and what we know into action on behalf of others, and then letting our knowing be, in turn, enhanced and changed by that practice.”
Congruence- the project moved “all of us from I to WE: that is, from experiencing ourselves solely as individuals to understanding that, in community-based learning, the success of any one student is connected to successful engagement with others.”
Commitment- “The students and artists took their collective anger and indignation and put it right back into their work. If the mural was impressive before, it became spectacular in the days that followed…the mural was finished without compromising the original artistic vision of the painters.”
Collaboration- “It mattered that this work was being done. And it mattered that this particular group of people were doing it together.”
Common purpose- “…the cloth covering came off and there it was: a testament to the power of individuals to come together into more than the sum of their parts, to render what was believed to be impossible not only possible, but necessary and human and real.”
Controversy with Civility- “The assembled group thanked the assistant chief for his input, asked him to allow them to get back to their work, and continued. They resisted. No one wanted to stop painting what was becoming a masterwork of culture, history, and the human possibility of all who were involved with it.”
Citizenship- “In many ways, the unfinished mural was already creating a common good by connecting us across gender, age, language, ethnicity and culture.”
By reading this case study and learning about the seven C’s, I have realized that a lot more goes into service learning that I had even imagined before. Service learning isn’t just about giving back to the larger community through your work, it’s about personal growth and being a part of something—a smaller community of sorts. And in order to have a successful service-learning project, each member of this smaller community must play his or her role in the creation of the work.