PsTL 1908W Urban Literacy

The assigned readings, “On the Road to Reading�, my thoughts and beliefs on child development were expanded. The reading really makes you think about what children at such young ages are exposed to and how you must really do a lot of work to nurture them to succeed. The reading also brought to light the amount of children who are not raised in nurturing environments and subsequently are behind other children in their language development. Therefore, I am more eager now to work with kids like that because I know, my help, or anyone’s help is important for their success.
The second reading, “Understanding Service� was an insightful work on community service. That reading exposed the many different opinions on community service and how some are agreeable and others are completely off-base. It also helped me to think about my upcoming service learning project and not go into it with biased judgments or any preconceived notions about it. I agree with the points in the reading that service is about the service to the people you choose to help. I want to give something to other people in the world in order to make an impact on their lives; even if it is a small impact, at least it will be something. So, in conclusion, I feel that these readings helped me to a certain degree to prepare myself for my service project and now I look forward to it very much.

Posted by Anna Pirsch at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I first looked at On the Road to Reading, it looked like all the other artcles i was handed before going to do service with young kids. When i started reading however i was pleased to see that there was more facts and timelines of when certian things happen inside the developing brain of the child. I realize now how critical it is to get kids interacting with people, objects, and their environment in general very early on. If you dont, you child could have a serious lack of some sort of brain connection needed for them to learn "normally." I have worked with kids many times before. I was a camp conselor and tutor at an elementry school. We really are role models to them. The things we do they copy. They pick up sounds and actions quickly, so its important to have your child surrounded by people and things you know and trust.
Understanding service brang up a great point about having preassumptions. I know when I tutored at an elementry school that was for children whos parents had very low income i figured they all had horrible family lifes and everything they did wrong or couldnt do i assumed that it was because of their home situations. Having this pre judgement didnt help at all because then i didnt take care of their needs appropratly. If they didnt want to read i thought they were upset about something at home and didnt realize it was because they really couldnt. Its really hard to connect with someone when you think you alreday know them. I am going to come into these srevice communitys as an outsider. None of the positions available are similar to me or alreday have a deep connection, but i am doing my best to not make any judgements and motivate myself to become an insider. I want to connect with my students and to also recieve something out of my service. I liked when the article talked about the fact that both you and the student you are teaching, helping out, ect are able to get something out of the experience but many "servers" dont let that happen or dont realize that it possible.

Posted by Kathryn Grayson at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After reading "On the Road to Reading" , there is one thing I know I will be careful of when I have children. I will be very careful of the people I leave my children with and also how I interact with them . After finding out how much talking and even attention have on how well a child learns, I know that it will be so important to make sure that they have the right environment so that they can learn to their full potential. It almsot scared me to think that a child's brain is so fragile and that even before they learn to speak, we are responsible to a great extent for how they will learn and understand things for the rest of their lives.
For me, the reading that struck the most questions and thoughts was the second one-"Understanding Service." I understood that the main messages were that you shouldn't enter a service site with personal assupmtions because many times they can be wrong. I also understood that you shouldn't ever have to feel like and insider/outsider because were are all basically the same when it comes down to it. I did, however, have a problem with it because I think it failed to really address how to deal with situations were you have no chioce but to be an outsider. For example, if I go to a service site where the population is mainly African American, there will always be a very big difference among us. I will always be white. It won't matter how cool of a person I am or how nice and politically correct I am. From my experiences, there will always be some people who cannot see past that, or will not give me as much respect or be willing to listen and learn from me than if I was black. I know some people might disagree with me, but my answer to you is that, yes, I know we are all the same and yes, that's the way the world should work. But, I'm a realist and it's a simple, yet still alarming fact that this is just the way the world is and sometimes (not always though) it won't work just to simply apply our educated and idealistic views on the people we will be helping. I also think that we could be the best people in the world, but if the people we are helping do not carry the same humility we do, it might present a problem for us, even if we have the best of intentions. They may not understand that there will always be people helping them who feel they are more priviledged than they are. I believe that is a common factor of people who want to do service and whether or not they can admit that, it is stll a truth. You wouldn't help someone if you didn't think you yourself had something to give them that they didn't already have. And, if the people we are helping have a hard time accepting this, it can also be hard. I feel like I'm being too negitive, but these were just things that bothered me while reading.

Posted by Anna Burke at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Before Reading this reading, I did not know there were so many different opinions on Community Service. I just thought everybody thought the same thing about it, which is you just go and help people and then get a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I never thought about the fact that there could be different opinions on it. I really agreed with Emily Dawson, first year student on page 45. Her definition of community service is exactly how I would define it too. I really disagree with A First Year Student on page 43. I don’t think that community service just means working with people in your community. I think it is also about working with people in other communities. I really thought this student sounded very selfish, especially when they said, “But helping people who live nearby, who share the same land, laws, government, and weather moves me to have a concern for their well-being; that is community service. In a sense, it is helping myself by improving the general situation around me, which affects me in so many visible and not visible ways.� This quote just sounded very selfish to me and it seems like this student is doing community service for the wrong reasons. He is doing it to better himself than to better the people he is supposed to be helping.

Posted by Kristen Erko at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have never formally read an article on service, I am just accustomed to doing it usually. I think the authors made me actually understand service and they had many good points. Although after reading the article, there was one point that bothered me. When a student was quoted about serving in Costa Rica but went on to say helping people around us is really community service, the authors did not seem encouraging of serving locally. I am an advocate of both, “charity starts at home� but serving elsewhere gives you a completely new perspective. I did not think wanting to serve nearby was as the authors put it “self-serving� and it may be limiting but I think it is up to the individual to find his or her fit to where they want to help others. As long as the spirit of service is the core of a person’s actions, I do not see why it matters what they are doing or where they are doing it, from building a house in or out of this country, they do not need to take a religious stance but if they do it is ok because they are still helping, people just need the right intentions of helping. Also, the authors say total selfless motivations rarely exist, which I believe is true and though people should strive to achieve this, doing service in a somewhat selfish manner is not wrong. Lots of high schoolers volunteer and use this on their applications because it shows they made a conscious choice to spend their time helping others, but it does not make the service any less significant if they are recognized for their time.

Posted by Caitlin Priem at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I am from Fenton, Michigan, a suburb of Flint. For the majority of my childhood, I was exposed to very little cultural diversity, being that the town I lived in was primarily white and middle class. I never really had acknowledged the idea that there was urban culture within 10 minutes of my house. I first became aware of this when my new homeroom teacher came to our school from Flint Central High School, an inner city school about 15 miles north. I was fascinated by stories that he brought from his experience teaching in that school and he opened our eyes to the differences between their inner city and suburban culture. We had never really thought that there could be that big of a difference between the schools, and from Mr. Lawrence’s stories, it seemed that there was. I am embarrassed to say that until my senior year of high school, I never really exposed myself to a culture different that mine. Last year, though, myself and some other classmates convinced Mr. Lawrence to set up an exchange with some Flint Central students. At the time, we all were just curious about their culture because of his stories, but we never realized what an impact the exchange would make on us as well as the Flint students. We learned more from each other than any class could ever teach us and we made friends that we are still in contact with. We introduced them to the band The Postal Service and they taught us how to “step�. Our sub sandwich line in our cafeteria fascinated them and their beautiful theatre fascinated us. We learned so much from each other, but most importantly we realized that we weren’t that different after all. As for me, I went from knowing nothing about inner city culture, to thinking that we lived in two different worlds (based on Mr. Lawrence’s stories) to coming to this conclusion based on my experiences: Cultures may seem much different, but truthfully, people everywhere are the same, when it comes down to it. We all have talents and interests, no matter how different they are, and we all are fascinated by those that seem different than us.

So what does this have to do with service learning? Everything. The reading “Understanding Service� by Carolyn Ross and Ardel Thomas mentions the idea of insiders and outsiders in a community. I don’t think that this is necessarily applicable. It may seem like you are an outsider in a community, but in truth, pretty much everyone is the same when it boils down to it. Anyone can be an “insider� in a community if they choose to open their minds to the idea that there will be differences, but inside, we are all the same.

Kate Cowger

Posted by Kate Cowger at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

After reading “On the Road to Reading�, I have learned several new things while having other theories reinforced. For example, most everyone who has read or studied brain development knows that a child’s early years are crucial to his/her later development as a person. Also, I found that how Derry Koralek and Ray Collins divided and individually defined the writing levels of a child to be particularly interesting. How they transitioned from controlled scribbling to scribble writing really got me thinking about how a young brain develops. It’s fascinating how quickly a child can learn to mimic so they “write� just like their parents. On a different note, I noticed that in those two paragraphs on page 12, the authors switched between the terms “her� and “him� when describing the children in their writing stages.

In this same article the section entitled “Understanding Brain Development� deeply described how the brain created a mass amount of connections and then disposes of the unneeded ones. This really opened my mind as to how people are so different and attracted to different things, on a biological level.

In the other article, “Understanding Service� I sincerely agree with the idea that many service workers go into a program thinking they are going to drastically change people’s lives, which they may, but not always in the way they imagine. For example, it is common that volunteers don’t see the people they are working with as equals; rather they see them as the learners and themselves as the teachers. It is sometimes hard for these volunteers to realize that the people they work with could have major university degrees in their own countries but simply can’t communicate their ideas with correspondents in this country. Once being an inhabitant of another country without any relatives or companions for a long time, I know this kind of discrimination and try to keep it equal when I help people.

Posted by Sarah Stackley at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

First off, I would just like to say that I enjoyed reading both of these pieces. For some reason the thought of volunteer services and working with kids intriques me.

I felt that Derry Koralek and Ray Collins "On the Road to Reading" displayed many great concepts and facts on how to mold the youth's mind in the right way. They did a great job of going through every single step that a child with go through on his or her way to being able to read and write, and also on all sorts of activities that are useful to teach them new things along the way.

The main point of the passage was to make sure that the children start early, because the younger they are, the easier it is for them to associate what they learn in the later stages. At a certain age these kids aren't going to be able to learn such simple concepts if they don't have the right building blocks. For instance, letting children play with objects such as colored blocks and having them make patterns with them at an early age will help with the task of arranging the different letters of a word at a later stage. Also, doing the Hokey-Pokey dance is one of the best things you can do with children. It teaches them different concepts such as directions, body parts, and how to "wiggle." Overall, in a way, "On the Road to Reading" has introduced many new ideas to me that I will be able to use when associating with little children. And since the majority of my immediate family consists of children under the age of 5, I am glad that all of the activities I did with my family will possibly end up helping them in learning how to read and write.

Onto the next passage of "Understanding Service." This opened up my eyes after I finished reading it. It made me think, "Why did I want to take this class?", and "Why did I choose the service learning organization that I did?". I believe that reason is because I enjoy working with anyone that I can, whether they be people privileged or underprivileged. I feel that if I can help in any way, whether through solely my own community or a nation-wide movement, I want to do the best that I can to help and maybe make a difference. Also, through service, not only will I possibly help teach different concepts to others, but I will learn so much through every experience. I think that is why I am so interested in services and volunteering.

To summarize everything up, I enjoyed both passages, and I feel that everyone involved with a service group should read them. It not only informs you of everything that you can possibly do for the numerous people you will interact with, but it also informs you that don't just put in your service and recieve nothing in the end. You will recieve so much, and most of it will be things that you won't realize in the beginning.

Posted by Justin Hasbrouck at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a summary of “Understanding Service� from Writing for Real: A Handbook for Writing in Community Service.

In recent years, the number of people involved in community service programs has steadily increased. This could be due to several reasons such as a response to a tragedy or a desire in one’s heart to help others less fortunate. Community service is a great way to improve the world, but one should have the knowledge of exactly what community service means prior to enrolling.
Prior to participating in a service-learning project, one should think about write down their thoughts on community service, motivations, and what community service means to them.
When two students were asked about their thoughts on community service, they responded, “Being a servant is the only way for me to really make any important differences in the lives of people� and “Community service is volunteering to help people who have some community bond with me…In a sense, it is helping myself by improving the general situation around me, which affects me..� These are both goods thoughts, yet there are some problems with them. The first response focuses on the servant making a difference in the lives of the people he helps. A servant has to realize that they are not only giving their abilities and skills; they are also learning new skills and knowledge through new experiences. Community service isn’t only a “giving� experience! The student that gave the second response seems sort of selfish to me. This student believes that community service is only meant for the area you are familiar with. If one were to only volunteer in a familiar environment, then he or she would miss out on the whole learning side of a service-learning project. Part of community service is about learning about different people and their skills, cultures, and experiences.
Making assumptions is a common problem many people participating in a service learning project make. In the reading there was a good example of a situation where assumptions could cause a problem. An African American from a prestigious school chose to volunteer teaching business skills to Eastern European immigrants. Being successful and well educated, it would be easy to assume the African American Student would have much more knowledge about the topic than the immigrants. However, this is not always true. Some of the immigrants could have been very successful business men in their homeland and would therefore have much more years of experience than the African American Scholar. This is why it is important to head into a service-learning project free of assumptions.
When participating in a service-learning program it is important to overcome noblesse oblige(the obligation assumed by those in “privileged positions to behave nobly toward those judged less fortunate). It is important to head into a service-learning project with an open mind. If you believe you are helping others that are less fortunate, you distance yourself from the people you are helping. This idea goes back to the idea that a service-learning program is a give and take experience. In serving the community, one not only helps others, but they learn from the people they are helping.
Heading into service-learning projects, many people feel comfortable about the environment and confident that they will fit in perfectly. This is another common problem many people face in community service. This idea ties in with not having assumptions prior to the project. An example in the reading involves a college student volunteering in at an organization that focuses on supporting children with leukemia. This student had volunteered their in the past and his younger brother had leukemia. When he began volunteering he soon learned that the methods to serve people with leukemia had radically changed and he then felt like an “outsider.� A contrast to this story involves a young woman from Singapore that enrolled in a service-learning project in the United States. Being from a completely different background, one would think that she would feel like a complete outsider in the community. However, she was able to find an agency that provides support to Asian immigrant communities. This shows how you shouldn’t head into a service-learning program feeling like an insider or outsider. It's best to just choose a project that you are interested in and head into the project free of assumptions.
Community service is a great thing, but can be a more meaningful and all-around better experience if certain guidelines are followed. It is important to keep in mind that community service involves both give in take. The purpose of community service is to better the community and yourself by sharing skills, backgrounds, and experiences.
Many times when I volunteered in the past, I had the mindset that I was volunteering to help those who need. When I look back on my experiences, I can clearly see that I have taken just as much as given. An example from my life would be my trip to Bolivia this past July. On this trip, my church youth group and I spent eight days cleaning and empty lot and building a kitchen for a church. When I was there, I felt that the only purpose was to help out the church. When I was there I was able to improve my Spanish skills dramatically and also learn many construction skills that could become useful to me in the future.

Alex Christianson

Posted by Alex Christianson at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Questions to think about from “Understanding Service� by Carolyn Ross
Many of us are not from the metro area and as the article mentions, you can feel like an outsider. Do you yourself feel like an outsider in the community you chose, whether it be race or familiarity, and if so how do you begin to bridge the gap to make a stronger connection?
What kind of skills or valuable experiences do you plan to take from the community service experience? As we learned, community service is not just what knowledge and gains you will impart to the people you are helping, but also the knowledge that you will reap as being part of the project.
Do you think that misconceptions and prejudices held beforehand can impact what you take away from a community service learning process?

Questions to think about from “ On the Road to Reading� by Derry Koralek and Ray Collins
What can we do after students have passed the prime age of 5 or 6 for acquiring syntax? This does not mean that kids cannot overcome this struggle.
What reasons are kids coming to school developmentally behind in the sense of reading, writing, and speaking? What can we do to prevent that?
I think that developing cognitive and language skills can be one of the most crucial aspects that define how a child grows and develops. If a child cannot speak and communicate effectively, it will evolve into serious ramifications for the future. As children are learning how to communicate, that one child who cannot communicate with his or her peers will be left out. Not only will he or she lose out on building those early friendships, but most likely their self-esteem in the coming years will suffer. That is why it is so important to install reading in children and help them to write effectively, because these basic skills will be extremely valuable to them in all their pursuits in the future, whether it be in math class, shopping for groceries, or filling out a job application.

Posted by Ashley Johnson at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

After reading On the Road to Service and Understanding you Service Learning Projects there were a few things that I found very interesting. One of the points that really stuck out to me in the article in our packet was a line that said, "The desire to serve is admirable." I liked this line because I have done a lot of community service over the years and met a lot of people through the hours that I have put in. Many of the people that I have met said that the only reason they were volunteering at the places I was at were to boost their resigmes and to get into college. I noticed that even though these people did a good job, their hearts weren't really into it so they didn't form bonds or connections with the people that they were helping. They may have gained something from the experience, but it wasn't the same thing that the people who were in it for the right reason gained.
In the second article I found many things interesting. I was very curious as to how researchers learn all this information about toddlers and children. It must be really hard to analyze infants in all these different stages of life. I thought some of the information was a little biased though. I think every child is different. I've heard my mom talk a lot about how she thought my brother was going to have a really hard time in school because he had a really hard time learning to read and write but he ended up graduating in the top ten of his highschool class and graduated from this university with a degree in philosphy and is getting his P.H.D. at Berkley right now. Like I said, I think all kids are different.

Posted by Rachael Goerger at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This text was taken from a summary by Derry Kolralek and Ray Collins for “America Reads Challenge� On the Road to Reading: A Guide for Community Partners.

Before we can understand a child’s development of literary skills, we must first understand the development of the human brain. The whole process starts at birth when a baby has 100 billion neurons. This number will not grow. In order for the neurons to be of any use, they must first connect into networks. These connections are formed when a baby’s mind is stimulated. Stimulation can come in the form of communication, stroking, or any other human to human interaction that they incur, as well as additional experiences such as those involving smell, feel, taste, etc. Upon stimulations the connections are produced. Trillions more connections than can be used are produced and later in life, usually starting at the age of 10, the extra connections are terminated and the mind starts to focus on efficiency and consistency. The connections that are used repeatedly are maintained and the unused connections are lost. This is where involvement is crucial to child development, and for this discussion we will focus on the comprehension of reading and writing skills. The more stimulation a child receives, the more “space� they have to store knowledge. Alternate forms of stimulation also include watching adults read books, newspapers, and magazines. Witnessing an adult write whether it be drafting a document, balancing a checkbook, or filling out a crossword puzzle can also create curiosity. These two skills, reading and writing, develop together, along with many others. They can be seen at the earliest stages when a child starts to scribble. In the next stage they realize that they can use their motor skills to control their drawing. Shortly after a child starts to recognize meaning in their drawings, and this is where writing and reading connect. A child starts to recognize symbols, pictures, and letters in other forms of written work and they begin to read. All of this has potential to happen, but only for the window of opportunity before their brain begins to sustain information and then begins to concentrate on topics. Without the necessary stimulation at a young age a child may not reach their full potential within the allotted time, hence, parental involvement along with the interaction of others is crucial to a child’s development.
Now that there is basic background information established, we must apply the reading to the course, which of course is urban literacy. I personally did not grow up in a bustling urban setting, but one point we’ve come to is that sometimes, but not always, in urban settings we lose some of the stimulation that we sometimes get in a smaller community. When you are a young child, stimulation from anyone promotes development of brain cells. Often this stimulation comes from parents or other primary care givers. What if the parent of a child has to work two or even three jobs to support their family? Does the child always get enough stimulation from their care provider? What about when a child starts pre-school. In an urban setting where there are more children, can we always give each child the small group setting they need and deserve? What can we do to help these children so they don’t get too far behind? These are all questions that professionals face on a daily basis all around the world. As we grow from our childhood and from a place where we are not fully dependent, yet not quite independent, to adulthood how can we as community members make a difference in a young person’s life starting at the most vital times in their development? Obviously we can volunteer wherever and whenever possible, but can anyone think of an activity or idea to help go above and beyond and really make a difference?

Chanda Alseth

Posted by Chanda Alseth at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)