REFLECTIONS ON SERVICE: A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY
When I arrived at Miami University as a first year student in 2004, I quickly developed the feeling that I did not “belong.” It seemed to me that I was different in almost every way from my peers. I came to a college nicknamed “J Crew U” with purple, magenta, and teal dyed hair, facial piercings, and a wardrobe that could be described as eclectic, at best. Moreover, because I was from a family that had experienced divorce, abuse, and poverty, I had drastically different life experiences compared to most of the other students I encountered. Even in the Western Program, often described to me as Miami’s safe haven for liberal, socially conscious students, I felt different. I became increasingly lonely and depressed, and only a few weeks into school, I began looking into the process of transferring. I planned to transfer after one year at Miami, and decided that I would try to make the best out of it in the meantime.
Then, one afternoon, I noticed a flyer in my dorm with the title, “Love Working With Kids? Apply for America Reads!” Reading on, I discovered the program was housed in the Office of Community Engagement and Service. It was a Federal Work Study opportunity that paid low-income college students to work with struggling readers in local schools and after-school programs. I had experience with tutoring children in high school and was immediately excited about the prospect of finding such a meaningful on-campus job. At the time, I thought joining America Reads would be a great way to earn much needed money for college while positively impacting my community. I had no idea that the moment I decided to apply was a turning point that would change the course of my life. America Reads was my most significant experience as an undergraduate because it taught me a great deal about my identity, my community, and the role of service and education in my life.
During my time at Miami, I served as an America Reads tutor primarily at Hamilton Living Water Ministry. Located in the 4th ward of Hamilton, Living Water works with a predominately low-income, Hispanic population. The children at Living Water face a significant number of challenges. As I grew closer to the children, I became more in tune to their daily struggles. The average family income in their neighborhood is $11,000 a year. Most of the children come from Spanish speaking homes, and some families are undocumented. Due to language barriers, many of the children’s parents can not help them read or complete homework. Some of the children I worked with would reveal other hardships such as hunger, lack of warm clothing, domestic violence, and incarcerated parents.
My experiences with Living Water left many unanswered questions, so I began to seek other experiences at Miami that would further educate me on the issues that I was seeing on a daily basis. I enrolled in the EMPOWER program, offered by the Office of Community Engagement and Service. EMPOWER combines social justice education with a variety of service experiences in settings such as choice pantries, neighborhood centers, and food banks. We also learned a great deal about the various types of community involvement, from philanthropy to service to activism, and how each type plays an essential role in positive social change. The course expanded my understanding of how social issues impact local communities and the role of civic engagement in addressing these issues.
My increased awareness and understanding, coupled with my experiences at Living Water, led me to redefine service. When I first began serving at Living Water, I viewed service as acts to help others or improve the community. They were selfless and even sacrificial at times. In the beginning, I embodied this definition. I felt sorry for the children; I even pitied them at times. I wanted to do everything I could to help them. While my feelings were based in compassion, they were disempowering. After my experiences at Living Water, I realized that this definition of service comes with an undeniable power differential that made the person providing the service feel better and stronger while making the person receiving the service feel passive and powerless. I now define service as partners in a mutually beneficial relationship working together toward the common goal of liberation and social justice.
Based on my new understanding of the issues the children were facing and my new outlook on service and social action, I began to view my students as equals. I realized that although we had different backgrounds, different cultures, different languages, and different lives, we also had a great deal in common and most importantly, a shared goal – a quality education. Together, we worked toward that goal. Each one of us was a student, a teacher, a mentor, and a friend. My experiences at Living Water made me aware that it is not people or lives that are broken or flawed, but rather the system. I became sensitive to my own privileges, and learned a great deal about educational inequity, the achievement gap, and issues such as racism and classism, resulting in a deep commitment and passion for social justice.
Just as significantly, however, the children at Living Water also helped me form a sense of community. As important as my newfound dedication to equality and social action was, it was this sense of community that led me to stay at Miami. Over the past six years there, I have developed wonderful relationships with the children. I am continuously amazed at their dedication, energy, and spirit. I am so proud of them and I know they have limitless potential and are capable of achieving any goal they set for themselves. When I first started tutoring at Living Water, I was convinced I was going to help the children and even change their lives. In the end, the children had a much more profound impact on me than I had on them. They accepted me, no questions asked, into their lives and their community. They have truly made me feel like I was a part of their extended family and I love them more than I can fully express. Ultimately, it was the relationship I developed with one student in particular that led me to pursue a career in student affairs in higher education.
The most meaningful relationship I developed through America Reads was with Celia. Celia is currently a sixth grader in the Hamilton City School District, and attends Living Water. I started tutoring Celia when I was a sophomore at Miami and she was a kindergartener. In many ways, Celia inspired me to pursue a career in higher education and student affairs because she made me question, reexamine, and change the way I viewed education and its purpose.
When I first met Celia, she was behind in almost every subject area, but especially reading and writing. When I tried to get Celia to read, especially for class assignments, she would refuse. She would try anything and everything to get out of reading. She would cry. She would argue. She would hide. She would lie and say that her homework was “optional.” Once she even told me that because I wanted her to read, I was the “worst tutor in the whole wide world” and said she did not want to work with me anymore. Celia’s response to reading had little to do with her ability. She is an intelligent girl, and is dedicated when encouraged and supported. I realized that her attitude was a result of how she felt about school – learning was a task that she was forced to do, something that was not fun or interesting or relevant to her life.
I realized I needed to rethink my educational approach – I needed to find new and creative ways to reach Celia and help her become re-energized about learning. So, I began developing new lesson plans. I spent hours searching for books that would be interesting to her and that she could relate to, especially focusing on Hispanic culture because is really proud of her Mexican heritage. I started reading books using puppets and voices, I made games to accompany everything we read, and I developed activities that involved her creating her own endings to stories or drawing her own illustrations. By the time she was in second grade, Celia loved to read. A few years ago, she won a reading contest at Living Water after finishing a total of 86 books in a 6-month time span!
In order to be successful, Celia needed to become excited about learning again. And as a college student, I could relate strongly to how she was feeling. In every class I took, I learned interesting information – about classism and the workforce, about the importance of identity development in youth, and about aging in American society. But the truth was, I was dissatisfied and frustrated. I took notes during lectures, and I studied for the tests. I did the readings and I talked during the class discussions. I followed the traditional model of education, and I did well. But I never felt the relevance of what I was learning in my own life, or the lives of others. Even within my own focus of study, I spent hours reading and theorizing about older adults – without ever actually interacting with one in the context of a course.
My experience with Celia and my own personal experiences made me realize that our education system, K – 12 and higher education, has become jaded by tradition. Students are learning information without seeing its relevance in their everyday lives. Students’ educational goals do not include applying their knowledge practically or collaborating with community to address real-life challenges, because they are not given the opportunity and that is not what they are rewarded for – rather, they are driven by grades, and the promise of a future beyond the university. Until that time, however, we are trapped in a box that is the classroom. After recognizing this, I decided to rededicate my time and energy and deepen my engagement through Service-Learning. Service-Learning is an experiential, pedagogical practice that uses action and reflection to meet needs and enhance learning through mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationships. As a result, students are able to gain real world skills and enhance their learning while contributing to the community. To me, Service-Learning was the solution to my frustrations with my education – it enlivened the learning experience. It was a way to connect all the knowledge I was gaining to real life issues and engage in my community in a meaningful way. Most importantly, I viewed Service-Learning as an opportunity for other students to have transformative experiences like I did, resulting in a lifelong citizens dedicated to equality and social justice.
My relationships with the children at Living Water shaped my future in unexpected ways. Rather than a job, America Reads was a journey of self-discovery. It led me to new realizations about my identity, what was important to me, and most significantly, the purpose of service and education in my life. With this newfound sense of purpose, I intensely studied Service-Learning and began to put theory into practice. For my undergraduate thesis, I designed and implemented a Service-Learning experience in GTY 154, an introductory gerontology course. For four weeks, a group of students spent time with assisted living residents at the Knolls of Oxford. Despite this short period of interaction, the students had extraordinarily constructive feedback about the experience. Each of them said that it had a positive impact on their educational experience and the way they viewed aging and older adults and they felt that it should continue to be offered. Thrilled by the experience, I decided to serve as an Ohio Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA for two years in the Office of Community Engagement and Service at Miami. As a VISTA, I assisted numerous courses in implementing Service-Learning and developed a Service-Learning Resource Guide and Orientation Video for faculty. I also established and co-led a Faculty Advisory Council for Service-Learning. Again, the feedback from both faculty and students was overwhelmingly positive, which led me to continue my work in the Office of Community Engagement and Service as the Interim Assistant Director. I feel continuously energized and renewed by the work and I know that Service-Learning at Miami has resulted in both transformative experiences for students and an improved community for all.
My experiences with community service and Service-Learning have strongly impacted my career path; rather than working directly in the field of gerontology, as I originally planned, I earned a Master of Science in Student Affairs in Higher Education and will enter a PhD program in Disability Studies in Fall 2013.
My former supervisor, Monica Ways, often speaks of the difference between making a living and making a life, meaning that you can make a living by having a job as a means to obtain money or you can make a life by pursuing what you are truly passionate about. For me, working in higher education to advance community engagement, Service-Learning, and social justice would be my ideal way to make a life because I have seen and experienced first-hand the positive and even transformative impact it has had on me, other students, faculty and the community.
*Written in May, 2013
Then, one afternoon, I noticed a flyer in my dorm with the title, “Love Working With Kids? Apply for America Reads!” Reading on, I discovered the program was housed in the Office of Community Engagement and Service. It was a Federal Work Study opportunity that paid low-income college students to work with struggling readers in local schools and after-school programs. I had experience with tutoring children in high school and was immediately excited about the prospect of finding such a meaningful on-campus job. At the time, I thought joining America Reads would be a great way to earn much needed money for college while positively impacting my community. I had no idea that the moment I decided to apply was a turning point that would change the course of my life. America Reads was my most significant experience as an undergraduate because it taught me a great deal about my identity, my community, and the role of service and education in my life.
During my time at Miami, I served as an America Reads tutor primarily at Hamilton Living Water Ministry. Located in the 4th ward of Hamilton, Living Water works with a predominately low-income, Hispanic population. The children at Living Water face a significant number of challenges. As I grew closer to the children, I became more in tune to their daily struggles. The average family income in their neighborhood is $11,000 a year. Most of the children come from Spanish speaking homes, and some families are undocumented. Due to language barriers, many of the children’s parents can not help them read or complete homework. Some of the children I worked with would reveal other hardships such as hunger, lack of warm clothing, domestic violence, and incarcerated parents.
My experiences with Living Water left many unanswered questions, so I began to seek other experiences at Miami that would further educate me on the issues that I was seeing on a daily basis. I enrolled in the EMPOWER program, offered by the Office of Community Engagement and Service. EMPOWER combines social justice education with a variety of service experiences in settings such as choice pantries, neighborhood centers, and food banks. We also learned a great deal about the various types of community involvement, from philanthropy to service to activism, and how each type plays an essential role in positive social change. The course expanded my understanding of how social issues impact local communities and the role of civic engagement in addressing these issues.
My increased awareness and understanding, coupled with my experiences at Living Water, led me to redefine service. When I first began serving at Living Water, I viewed service as acts to help others or improve the community. They were selfless and even sacrificial at times. In the beginning, I embodied this definition. I felt sorry for the children; I even pitied them at times. I wanted to do everything I could to help them. While my feelings were based in compassion, they were disempowering. After my experiences at Living Water, I realized that this definition of service comes with an undeniable power differential that made the person providing the service feel better and stronger while making the person receiving the service feel passive and powerless. I now define service as partners in a mutually beneficial relationship working together toward the common goal of liberation and social justice.
Based on my new understanding of the issues the children were facing and my new outlook on service and social action, I began to view my students as equals. I realized that although we had different backgrounds, different cultures, different languages, and different lives, we also had a great deal in common and most importantly, a shared goal – a quality education. Together, we worked toward that goal. Each one of us was a student, a teacher, a mentor, and a friend. My experiences at Living Water made me aware that it is not people or lives that are broken or flawed, but rather the system. I became sensitive to my own privileges, and learned a great deal about educational inequity, the achievement gap, and issues such as racism and classism, resulting in a deep commitment and passion for social justice.
Just as significantly, however, the children at Living Water also helped me form a sense of community. As important as my newfound dedication to equality and social action was, it was this sense of community that led me to stay at Miami. Over the past six years there, I have developed wonderful relationships with the children. I am continuously amazed at their dedication, energy, and spirit. I am so proud of them and I know they have limitless potential and are capable of achieving any goal they set for themselves. When I first started tutoring at Living Water, I was convinced I was going to help the children and even change their lives. In the end, the children had a much more profound impact on me than I had on them. They accepted me, no questions asked, into their lives and their community. They have truly made me feel like I was a part of their extended family and I love them more than I can fully express. Ultimately, it was the relationship I developed with one student in particular that led me to pursue a career in student affairs in higher education.
The most meaningful relationship I developed through America Reads was with Celia. Celia is currently a sixth grader in the Hamilton City School District, and attends Living Water. I started tutoring Celia when I was a sophomore at Miami and she was a kindergartener. In many ways, Celia inspired me to pursue a career in higher education and student affairs because she made me question, reexamine, and change the way I viewed education and its purpose.
When I first met Celia, she was behind in almost every subject area, but especially reading and writing. When I tried to get Celia to read, especially for class assignments, she would refuse. She would try anything and everything to get out of reading. She would cry. She would argue. She would hide. She would lie and say that her homework was “optional.” Once she even told me that because I wanted her to read, I was the “worst tutor in the whole wide world” and said she did not want to work with me anymore. Celia’s response to reading had little to do with her ability. She is an intelligent girl, and is dedicated when encouraged and supported. I realized that her attitude was a result of how she felt about school – learning was a task that she was forced to do, something that was not fun or interesting or relevant to her life.
I realized I needed to rethink my educational approach – I needed to find new and creative ways to reach Celia and help her become re-energized about learning. So, I began developing new lesson plans. I spent hours searching for books that would be interesting to her and that she could relate to, especially focusing on Hispanic culture because is really proud of her Mexican heritage. I started reading books using puppets and voices, I made games to accompany everything we read, and I developed activities that involved her creating her own endings to stories or drawing her own illustrations. By the time she was in second grade, Celia loved to read. A few years ago, she won a reading contest at Living Water after finishing a total of 86 books in a 6-month time span!
In order to be successful, Celia needed to become excited about learning again. And as a college student, I could relate strongly to how she was feeling. In every class I took, I learned interesting information – about classism and the workforce, about the importance of identity development in youth, and about aging in American society. But the truth was, I was dissatisfied and frustrated. I took notes during lectures, and I studied for the tests. I did the readings and I talked during the class discussions. I followed the traditional model of education, and I did well. But I never felt the relevance of what I was learning in my own life, or the lives of others. Even within my own focus of study, I spent hours reading and theorizing about older adults – without ever actually interacting with one in the context of a course.
My experience with Celia and my own personal experiences made me realize that our education system, K – 12 and higher education, has become jaded by tradition. Students are learning information without seeing its relevance in their everyday lives. Students’ educational goals do not include applying their knowledge practically or collaborating with community to address real-life challenges, because they are not given the opportunity and that is not what they are rewarded for – rather, they are driven by grades, and the promise of a future beyond the university. Until that time, however, we are trapped in a box that is the classroom. After recognizing this, I decided to rededicate my time and energy and deepen my engagement through Service-Learning. Service-Learning is an experiential, pedagogical practice that uses action and reflection to meet needs and enhance learning through mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationships. As a result, students are able to gain real world skills and enhance their learning while contributing to the community. To me, Service-Learning was the solution to my frustrations with my education – it enlivened the learning experience. It was a way to connect all the knowledge I was gaining to real life issues and engage in my community in a meaningful way. Most importantly, I viewed Service-Learning as an opportunity for other students to have transformative experiences like I did, resulting in a lifelong citizens dedicated to equality and social justice.
My relationships with the children at Living Water shaped my future in unexpected ways. Rather than a job, America Reads was a journey of self-discovery. It led me to new realizations about my identity, what was important to me, and most significantly, the purpose of service and education in my life. With this newfound sense of purpose, I intensely studied Service-Learning and began to put theory into practice. For my undergraduate thesis, I designed and implemented a Service-Learning experience in GTY 154, an introductory gerontology course. For four weeks, a group of students spent time with assisted living residents at the Knolls of Oxford. Despite this short period of interaction, the students had extraordinarily constructive feedback about the experience. Each of them said that it had a positive impact on their educational experience and the way they viewed aging and older adults and they felt that it should continue to be offered. Thrilled by the experience, I decided to serve as an Ohio Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA for two years in the Office of Community Engagement and Service at Miami. As a VISTA, I assisted numerous courses in implementing Service-Learning and developed a Service-Learning Resource Guide and Orientation Video for faculty. I also established and co-led a Faculty Advisory Council for Service-Learning. Again, the feedback from both faculty and students was overwhelmingly positive, which led me to continue my work in the Office of Community Engagement and Service as the Interim Assistant Director. I feel continuously energized and renewed by the work and I know that Service-Learning at Miami has resulted in both transformative experiences for students and an improved community for all.
My experiences with community service and Service-Learning have strongly impacted my career path; rather than working directly in the field of gerontology, as I originally planned, I earned a Master of Science in Student Affairs in Higher Education and will enter a PhD program in Disability Studies in Fall 2013.
My former supervisor, Monica Ways, often speaks of the difference between making a living and making a life, meaning that you can make a living by having a job as a means to obtain money or you can make a life by pursuing what you are truly passionate about. For me, working in higher education to advance community engagement, Service-Learning, and social justice would be my ideal way to make a life because I have seen and experienced first-hand the positive and even transformative impact it has had on me, other students, faculty and the community.
*Written in May, 2013