Though I have volunteered at various places before, Service Learning was a unique experience. Through readings, discussions, group work, and practical application, I learned a great deal about the meaning of service, community, social justice, social responsibility, and access to equity, especially in the context of education.
From the children at the Community Partnership for Youth (CPY), I learned a great many things. Our backgrounds are different and because of this we could teach each other new ways of seeing the world and new information. Diversity is a value. If everybody is the same, then it is difficult to come up with new ideas. Collaboration is a key to innovation. Within Service Learning, I collaborated with the CPY staff, Saito-sensei, Japanese students, American students, and the students at CPY. Because of this diversity of opinions and perspectives, my team and I were able to better serve our students and learn from our experiences. For example, we were able to create better lesson plans based on what we learned in class, what we learned about our students, and what other groups were doing. Because of this collaboration, we were able to work more towards social justice by learning from others. In our lesson plans, we always made sure to take time to let the students speak, so that they would have a chance to be heard. We felt this was especially important because many of our students came from marginalized communities and may not be heard in other arenas in their lives. Everybody's story is important.
Despite the fact that diversity is an asset, it can create negative situations. Minority groups can be marginalized by majority groups, as is the case with the students at CPY. When a group is marginalized, it effects generations. For example, if a somebody's parents are barred from taking higher paying jobs because of skin color, have to work long hours so they can't be with their children as much, and can't pay for better education, then that person is more likely to get in trouble and not do as well with academics. Even in the future, if later generations are not barred from taking higher paying jobs due to skin color, then they are still less likely to be able to take them because they may not have a good enough education, and their children experience the same issues they did. If this cycle is not broken, it continues. Because I have social privilege in society, I must be aware of this. I cannot assume that everybody has the same resources as I do, even with something as simple as getting help on homework. My social privilege gives me social responsibility. Social justice is acting on social responsibility, even if it is something small. For example, CPY creates social justice by giving students a safe place to stay after school and help with their homework when they wouldn't otherwise have that. CPY helps fulfill their rights in our society.
As educated college students, we also discussed our social responsibility to share our skills in order to lift others up and provide better access to equity. Collaborating with teachers, staff, the students, and each other allowed us to fulfill our social responsibility as best we could. One of the ways our work at CPY provides better access to equity is by providing students with more knowledge. Students from marginalized backgrounds can have more trouble finding access to useful and interesting knowledge because of language barriers and a lack of resources. By offering classes on Japanese culture and language, we gave students a way to expand their knowledge base that may not otherwise have been available to them. Another way we provided better access to equity was by helping with homework. Many marginalized students don't receive as much homework help as others at home, either because their parents are too busy or don't speak English well enough to help. By offering a service which students with parents who can and do help with homework take for granted we helped to even the playing field of school for students at CPY.
I can now also feel more compassion towards the students of CPY and people of other backgrounds than me. This is because I have a greater understanding of their community, and am aware of the fact that to truly serve people, you have to be open minded, accepting, understanding, and ready to learn about them.