Reflection On My Service Learning Experiences

I’ve had the opportunity to work with students at Noble Elementary School as part of my first service learning experience. Throughout this experience, my eyes have been opened to how difficult it can be for students to attend underfunded schools and how the long school days affect students’ productivity. According to the reading titled Service-learning as Crucible, service learning “provokes one to think differently about the world, and to consider one’s relationship to the world in a new way”(Pompa, 2002). I have gained a stronger sense of empathy regarding what these children have to experience every day.

 I have enjoyed helping one 5th-grade student, Layla, with math homework every Wednesday. Layla tells me that she arrives at school at 7am, and doesn’t leave to go home until 6pm every day. When I found this out, it explained a great deal to me why she appeared so drained- if I had to stay at school for 11 hours every day I would be too. It puts into perspective how mentally, physically, and emotionally challenging school can be for these children who rarely get time to relax outside of the school environment. 

Noble Elementary is a highly minority-populated public school that appears to me to be underfunded. For example, the students have told me that they are scared to be in class at times because there are rodents in the classrooms; they have rats, mice, and even bees sometimes get in. Noble lacks the necessary resources to keep up with the maintenance of the school. One of the classes I’ve taken at JCU is about how to teach mathematics and the topics each grade level learns about. Based on this previous knowledge, the 5th graders appear to be pretty far behind in their math skills. I’ve learned in our School and Society class that underfunded schools can result from neo-vouchers which use “public money for private religious schooling while reducing the funding available for public education”(Schneider and Berkshire, 2020). If schools like Noble had more funding, they probably wouldn’t have the problems they do, and maybe the students would have the necessary resources to not fall behind.

There is a problem that service learning might result in a negative effect on college students concerning certain biases being confirmed about certain groups of people. This can occur when working in an environment that is different from what they’re used to. Personally, I have benefitted from this experience because I was able to walk in the shoes of people who live “fundamentally different lives than I and finding a connection through a shared language, or a shared culture, or a shared experience of some kind” (I Reassessed Who I Am, 2017) I have connected with these students and formed relationships with them. I have learned that patience, understanding, and compassion are some of the best qualities an educator should have. When tutoring these students, I have further developed these qualities and learned that I can get through to them when I embody these qualities.