Blogging about Volunteering and Reflecting on Learnings
Six Years in the Classroom. Six Months in Lima, Peru. October 24, 2015 In my junior year of high school, my Spanish teacher strongly suggested that I drop out of Advanced Placement Spanish. At this point, I had studied Spanish for nearly 6 years in Brooklyn, NY. Classes were always pretty uninspiring and not very deep. In fact, I had never progressed as much as I wanted in the 6 year time span. I figured my teacher was right. I had bad grades in the class and felt embarrassed that I was failing what seemed like the easiest class in school. I felt very frustrated that I was not learning anything. But I was 16 and thought it was my fault. At this point I was not digging deep into pedagogy or thinking about the best ways to learn. For almost the next decade I figured I was bad at languages and gave up pursuing them.
After a few years working in NYC, I started to recognize how I learned best. It was through work! I learned so much working in a jail for four years after college. I learned much more than I could have in a classroom. I always thought it was an issue with my high school – maybe they didn’t have enough money or enough teachers who knew how to teach. But a quote from hybrid pedagogy - One Big Question, tells us something important, "The excuse for all this is the famous crisis and the alleged lack of public money, but, as already noted by many voices, the measures that have been applied, since the beginning of this crisis, not serve to get out of it, but they are ideal to dismantle all utilities, extorting workers and the lower classes and increase the rate of return to capital.” This quote explains that it isn’t a problem with money. It is a lack of pedagogy that inspired student learning. I learned this lesson clearly when I went to Peru to learn Spanish. I was taking Spanish classes and at the same time was a volunteer at an educational organization. After six months, I was more proficient in Spanish than I ever was after 6 years studying the language in a classroom. But the most productive part was the combination of working in Spanish and having individual tutoring session to reflect and strengthen my language skills. Spanish 102c has a similar combo – an emphasis on working in Spanish and reflecting on our work during class time. If we are not learning language in context, it is very unlikely that we can learn anything. I feel that I am more in control of my own learning and experiences in this class than in any of my other Spanish classes. I know that courses like this are not easy because in our culture people want to have fast answers and do not always appreciate the process of getting to the answer. However, a new pedagogical method is very important if we expect students to learn things that they can use in their daily lives.
Learning through volunteering is very important to me, especially in the phase of my life that I am in right now. It was hard for me to leave my full time job in NYC to come back to school and study for my master’s degree. I often feel bored sitting in the classroom since I am almost 30 and have over 5 years of work experience. But similar to as it is written in Hybrid Pedagogy – One Big Question, "Knowing where to begin can be challenging. In many ways, change must be organized, even self-organized, in order to be effective -. And probably on a smaller scale rather than a larger one.” The fact of the matter is that the classroom has not changed so much in the seven years since I graduated from my undergraduate degree. However, I can start with my own initiative and those of my colleagues to start changing an education system one classroom at a time. Without innovation and trying new things, school is static and unchanged with no growth. Therefore, we have to always think about how to combine the classroom with the office, with the real world of work and sharing our learning with our peers and the world outside of the walls of Berkeley.
When I am thinking of dropping my masters, I will challenge myself to create an experience that is mine and can really lead to me to learn in a real way that will help me in the future. It is worth trying a different pedagogical method before I decide to stop believing in formal education. I do not want to spend 6 more years in the classroom without learning anything. At the same time, I want to believe in a dynamic classroom where everyone can learn, regardless of their background, experience or preferred method of learning.
Within my master’s program, I more or less have the privilege to choose the classes that I want to take. However, in reality, there are not many options to learn in a dynamic way. I have a friend who has taught in public schools for many years. Now, she is writing a blog about his experiences in the traditional classroom. Something she wrote recently caught my attention. She wrote, "picture this kind of choice- a school community in which parents, students, teachers and the administrators are all empowered to make actual choices. Teachers teach how to choose and choose and design meaningful, child centered curriculum. Families, teachers, and school leaders choose to include the arts, physical education and sciences in the school day and families choose from a menu of enriching after school programs and workshops for caregivers.” It’s amazing that this is still not what our schools look like in this country. It is definitely more common in higher education, but even so, it is uncommon to have schools with a dynamic learning environment tailored to the needs of the students. The easiest thing is to have standardized exams and a fixed curriculum. In Spanish 102C, we are learning that it is not easy to define a classroom structure and culture ourselves. It feels like a lot of work when the students are contributing to determining the grading structure and adding resources to the syllabus. However, it feels like more work because we have so many other things to do like memorizing for a test or reading 100 pages. If we focus on creating a course that gives us all the lessons we need to learn, it would be worth all the work it takes to create it. So now I'm thinking more about how to focus on the things I can learn a lot from instead of the things I need to do just for the sake of doing them.
Be Flexible. Learn Experientially. November 23, 2015
Prior Experience In 2009 I went to Bucharest, Romania to volunteer with an organization called the National Democratic Institute. They had been working with Roma communities that did not have access to the political process in Romania. The mission of the organization was to teach them how to make campaigns and run for public office. That was my first experience with volunteering outside of the country and I did not know what to expect. I didn’t speak Romanian nor the Romani language. However, I remember to this day that the experience transformed my impressions of volunteering internationally. It was working in communities without water and without roofs on their houses. I didn't know what change I could make since I did not understand the language or the cultural and historical context of the Romani.
I don't know how much my thoughts about volunteering internationally have changed over the years. From our experience in 102c I have enjoyed the “experiential learning” component of finding an organization to volunteer with and the time we have taken to reflect on the theme of volunteering internationally. The article on "Experiential Learning" tells us that this model of teaching occurs when (1) the students are reflecting on experiences in the classroom (2) students have to take initiative and be responsible for the results (3) the results of the learning process are individual and can be applied towards future learnings and (4) learning is very flexible. I think that we have done all these three things in the process of investigating organizations where we can volunteer internationally.
Reflecting on experiences Each week we had to write a little bit about the process of searching for an organization. This was useful because we were able to reflect on our goals, on what we wanted from an organization, what kind of work we want to do and where we want to go. Also during the process of interviewing organizations we could compare and contrast the different opportunities. I think it is very important to always reflect on the experience of pursuing this type of work. Even more importantly it is useful to reflect when you are already there doing the work. It may be useful to process what's happening and to notice the good and bad things about an experience.
I thought before that an organization that does microfinance would be very different from other organizations offering social services. I thought this because its focus is more on capitalism and supporting people to become financially self-sustainable. I didn't know if organizations who dedicated their work to this would have the same values as other organizations. After talking with En Via I started to think differently. Although the theme of En Via is different, it resembles many other NGOs. They are in communities, believe that communities are strong and have their own resources, and have a mission very aligned with the missions of the other community-based organizations. This experience highlighted for me the need to be honest to ourselves about our preconceived notions. The most valuable is understanding how our ideas have changed after being in contact with organizations that we are interested in volunteering for.
Take Initiative and Be Responsible The part I loved about this was taking initiative and being responsible by communicating with the organizations and following up to set up time to speak with them. This is a very important real life skill. Decide on a time and method of communication, research the organization first, and think of questions that you can ask the organization - these are very important steps in the process. So, I am very grateful that we had the opportunity to do all this as students. It is a skill – to have this kind of "follow up" – which will be very helpful when we are working at organizations internationally. Perseverance is also very important in this type of situation. It is not easy to get in contact with an organization. You have to have patience and try different methods of contacting them. With En Via, it took them almost four weeks until they responded. I had to talk to a professor who knew someone at En Via and ask her to put me in touch with someone there. When you have a network, it is much easier to connect with organizations where you don’t know anyone initially.
I suggest that students continue trying to contact the organizations even if they do not respond the first time. Also from this experience I've learned that it is good to keep your work contacts. You never know when you need to ask someone for the contact information of someone else in an organization you are researching.
Learning That Is Specific to the Students and Useful for the Future The organizations we choose as students really reflected our individual interests. The organizations focused on a variety of topics such as surfing, music, health, and microfinance. All of the students are unique and have our own experiences and goals. It was very valuable that we could choose an organization that deals with issues that we are passionate about. But the most important thing is that we could also learn from our peers. When volunteering internationally it is important to not limit the types of activities you are willing to participate in. Be open to different opportunities is a space in which you can learn and grow even more. And if you only go to a country for a few months, it is worth exploring what other things you can try and do in the context of work. You don't know if you're going to find out something new regarding your interests and yourself. The good thing about having gone through this learning process is that we can continue our search for volunteer opportunities after the semester is over and contact the organizations we found at any time in the future. The most important part of doing a project like this is making it relevant and useful.
Learning has to be Very Flexible There were days when we couldn’t get in touch with the organizations and had to change the course of the class right then and there. Everything in a traditional school setting is very structured and it was difficult for us to incorporate this flexibility into the classroom. But I also think that it was an important lesson. The flexibility is very important when you are volunteering abroad. You never know what will happen or what curveballs will arise. As much as you research an organization, you will never know exactly what it is like. Therefore, the process of being flexible and figuring out other activities to do when the technology in the classroom was not working was important in the overall process of learning what could happen when you are volunteering.
Have my thoughts about volunteering changed? In the past 6 years my thoughts about volunteering have changed a lot. I have learned how to speak Spanish, I have travelled to many countries in Latin America, and I have studied the history of the continent. Now, the thought of volunteering in Latin America is very different from the work I was doing in Romania years ago. Back then, I didn’t know anything about the country that I was working in and I only went to learn more about topics that interested me at the time. I think this was an experience where I was exploring the many faceted stories of Eastern Europe, such as in the Ted Talk "The Single Story". It is good to explore the varying stories of a country, but to make your experience as useful as possible, I think it is important to be explicit about what you want before you go and do a deep search like ours to find a good fit. Actually, I now I can have a more meaningful conversation with the organizations while I am researching them and ask intelligent questions. This is very useful in choosing the right experience. I still feel wary about volunteering abroad because I don’t want to be that student from the United States that comes in with privilege and tells others what they need to be doing. The essay by Clare Talwalker grabbed my attention because it was about this issue. She says, "What would it mean for a North American or Western European college volunteer to abandon the role of assistant to the poor and needy and take on the part of witness to instead - and, perhaps, facilitator of - others' political engagement with their national government?" This made me reflect on the fact that it is important to figure out what you are learning from the process and learn how to work with communities in partnership with them. If you do not walk in with the perspective that people in your country as poor and need help, you can learn a lot more from the lives of others you are meeting in developing countries. Also you can learn with them and figure out how to work with them. The first step in accomplishing this is being clear about your own intentions about where and what you want to volunteer in and how you need to be a good fit with an organization.
The Language, The Culture and Being a Volunteer November 30, 2015
The student smiled at me and asked, “You were in my class last week, right?” I remembered his face also. During this period I was working in public schools in New York City right after graduating from Wesleyan University. This makes me remember the feeling of being more comfortable after spending a good amount of time working in a school community. You can never feel comfortable the first time working in a school, especially when you are only there once a week. I did not think about this much when I first got to OIHS, but after three months, I have come to realize the importance of frequently being in contact with the community you are working with, creating connections with people and learning more about the culture of the people who are the fabric of the institution.
I didn’t know what to expect my first day at OIHS. I previously worked with immigrants from other countries, but never in a school that specifically exists to serve immigrant youth. Many of the challenges I have seen at the school have made me question (1) the best way to integrate adolescents from other countries into a new culture, (2) how to teach English without having the students lose their native languages, and (3) other services schools should offer other than just pure academics. All of these questions have been really swirling around in my head both at OIHS and during other classes I am taking this semester.
Right now I am working towards my master's degree in public policy. During my time at OIHS, I have done a lot of reflecting about the intersection between education and policy. I believe that policy plays a crucial role in the debate about what the goal should be for young people that are migrating to this country. In a class I am taking called The Southern Border, we have read and talked a lot about this topic. In fact, the principal of OIHS was in one of these classes and discussed the different sides of this debate. According to an article in the New York Times [1], schools like OIHS are "contemporary forms of segregation that provide students learning English intensive support to meet rising academic standards - and it also helps keep the peace." It is true that schools like OIHS separate new migrants from students who were born in the U.S. This can be construed as both positive and negative. I think that we can evaluate them but it depends on the goal that we have for these young people. According to the article, the fundamental question is "Are you going to focus on educating them or socially integrating them?" We should have priorities as a society, and if the priority is education, perhaps it is worth separating them. But if it is a mixture of the two goals, maybe we have to find other solutions that fall more towards the middle. I think that language also plays a crucial role in the debate and at OIHS in general. Someone told me recently that the United States is a place where the language go to die. The value in this country is on knowing English and not on knowing a multitude of languages. In the debate, it is clear that if we only teach young immigrants English, this means that we value English over the youth’s native language. At the same time, it is likely impossible to teach all students in their own languages so that they don't lose the language they grew up with. At OIHS students speaking 27 different languages. Specifically with Spanish, it would be possible to teach Spanish-speaking in English and Spanish because there are quite a few teachers who speak Spanish in the United States. And because Latinos in the U.S. are many, nearly a quarter of the population. At OIHS children from Central America who have crossed the border alone constitute almost two thirds of the population of the school. Therefore, at OIHS it might be useful to teach in Spanish as well. However, it would be impossible to teach all of the students in their native language since many speak much less commonly known languages than Spanish.
At the end it is a question of priorities and what is more important. Should students focus only on English when they arrive or should they continue forward academically with their native language. I think both hold a lot of value and there are probably ways to do both simultaneously. It is possible that in some situations it is not feasible or useful to do both, for example with children who speak a language that is not spoken by any other children or teachers. In my perspective, I believe that it is crucial that immigrants retain their native languages and that the US becomes a country that value the cultures and different languages.
The best part of being a volunteer at OIHS is that I've been able to I reflect on my own process of learning a new language. I think that languages reflect the culture of people and the two cannot be separated. That is why it is important to learn languages in cultural contexts and not just in the classroom with other students. According to an article called "How Thinking is Shaped" [2]:, "each [language] contains a way of perceiving, categorizing and making meaning in the world, an invaluable guidebook developed and honed by our ancestors. "Research into how the languages we speak shape the way we think is helping scientists to unravel how we create knowledge and construct reality." This article made me reflect on how languages reflect our thoughts, and vice versa. If those are the facts, it is important that language students learn the language in its context with other people who are masters of their languages. In this way, they could have a deeper understanding of both the language and the culture. An idea I've had is that education of immigrants could be more successful if we mixed new immigrants who are learning English with American students who are learning Spanish. For example, if a day each week a student of Spanish at Oakland Tech could come to OIHS for an exchange of languages and culture this would probably benefit both the English and Spanish learners in the situation. I think that both sides could learn a lot from this experience.
The connection between language and culture can be best witnessed in Latin America where Spanish varies so much by country. It is important to learn Spanish in the context of a culture because it is spoken very differently throughout different countries. If we learn Spanish without a cultural context we could not really understand the language or the people who speak the language. For this reason, I believe that it is worthwhile to further explore the world and to volunteer internationally. You could learn much faster and much more fluidly when you are listening to the language every day and writing all the words specific to the culture. I think it is the same thing with volunteering locally with people from other countries because there is an opportunity to meet and do a language exchange. After the experience in OIHS, I am committed to working there more and specifically with teenagers who have recently arrived in this country. This would be a very beneficial internship to pursue since I could continue using my Spanish in a professional context, learn about the immigration and education system, and the cultures of many people around the world. I think that there are many challenges in this type of worked because everyone speaks different languages at OIHS and much is lost in translation. But it also opens up opportunities to talk about the differences between cultures and different goals for adolescents in this country. I've learned a lot about the different perspectives of how to teach youth new language. To continue pushing forward, I need to keep putting myself in new situations where I challenge myself to only speak Spanish in a lot of different contexts. It's the same for adolescents, but at the same time we have to support them in learning English and navigating a completely new culture.