Final Service Learning Reflection #3

Out of all the readings from this semester, I feel the reading that connects the best to my experience at NALC is Salvage Inequalities. Reading the content in Salvage Inequalities was as if Jonathan Kozol saw Cohn High School and my experience at NALC, and then wrote about it. Referring to public schools, Kozol talks about the inequalities in the school system and I absolutely felt what he was talking about when I first entered the school. When I entered the front doors, I thought about Camden High School, the school Kozol talks about in chapter 4. I saw lockers falling apart, some missing lights, and signs that read "lockers are property of the school and can be searched anytime". The first time I walked into the NALC designated room, I saw all the books and lesson plans, and thats when it hit me that this was reality. Many people in the United States can bearly or all together cannot read. These people that were coming in to get tutored were some of the students that fell through the cracks of the public school system and now they are at NALC. I knew these people did not choose to fall through the cracks of the school system and this is when I started to feel guilty. Though lots of NALC students are not from the United States, there are still some that are. How did these students go through life without becoming literate? With guilt came gratefulness for my own personal literacy experience and for the staff and volunteers at NALC. If these organizations like NALC did not exist, what would happen to these students? Would they keep on going through life, never being literate? It's for these organizations like NALC and authors like Jonathan Kozol that acknowledge these inequalities and challenges people to fix this problem.

Final Service Learning Reflection #2

The way the space was used at NALC was very creative and maximized the space of the room. Right when you walk in the front door, you see that the room has been separated into two halves by fake walls. On one side, you have the staff at their desks working, a copy machine and many files and books. They also have a large wooden table with 4 seats. This side of the room seems to be lively but the conversations are only between the staff members. This might be because of the wall that is blocking them from where the actual tutoring is happening. On the other side of the room, there are more little fake walls where it makes private tutoring areas. I thought this was genius because this eliminated any distractions or embarrassment one student might have. There are also computers in the corner of the room which students can log on and study in their own leisure time. Sometimes students will use the computers before their actual scheduled tutor time or after. There are many small desks and chairs where the tutoring happens and on each table is a can of pencils. In the back of the room are books where students can check out and study from at home. On the fake walls are posters of syllables and vowels but they are in black and white. There is not much color in the room which you would expect to see. The room is not cold or stale by no means, it is just professional and friendly. All these things contribute to the students learning process of English, and by the students I have talked to, they really seem to like NALC. I don't think they need a bunch of gadgets and gizmo's, they just need a tutor who will cast no judgement and who will help and listen to them.

Final Service Learning Reflection #1

Until 7th grade, I've always went to an expensive catholic school in Chicago, Illinois. This is where I learned how to read and write. I know I learned a bunch of things like nouns, verbs and pronouns because I use them everyday and it comes naturally today, but the funny thing is, I don't remember actually learning them. These english "rules" have been pounded into my mind for years, and after a little while they have just sticked. I was never the greatest writer going through middle school. I would call myself an average writer and it wasn't until I was in High School where I became a better writer. I don't know if it was because I cared about my academic scores or I just really enjoyed writing. Looking back on my literacy experience, I am really grateful for my teachers that helped me become literate, even though I probably didn't care much for it when I was little. I felt my literacy experience compared to the students at NALC was different. Maybe because I can't really remember my experience? I don't know. At NALC, the students are older but are going through different lesson plans than I did, but they still teach the same concepts. When I tutored the man from Cambodia, it was easy to recognize that we were from different cultures and hardly shared anything in common with each other, except we both believed in the idea of being literate. I found it interesting how the tables switched now that I was tutoring. Who once was a student learning from a teacher about grammar and pronunciation was now teaching a man who moved to America 4 months ago English. Though the Cambodian man and I were physically different, we shared and believed in the same idea of a person being happier when they are literate.

NALC (2 hours)

I arrived at NALC a little earlier before my session at 10 o' clock because I wanted to look over the lesson plan for that day to prepare. At 10 o'clock sharp, a Cambodia man (S.K) and I started our lesson. We first shared about our weekends and then jumped into the "pizza" lesson book. He first described the picture he saw, which was a family in a shoe store trying on different kinds of shoes. We then went on to vocabulary words that he would soon read in the next page of a short story. I first pronounced the vocabulary word and then he repeated me. He then told me that he could read the words first and then if he pronounces the word wrong, I can correct him. I was really impressed by his memory because he first read the short story, and then 10 minutes later, there were comprehension questions to go over, and he knew many of these answers without looking back to the story to find them. I broke up the comprehension questions with asking him related questions to the short story. This way, the lesson didn't feel too stale or not personable. The lesson ended by S.K telling the NALC staff that I was a great teacher! I felt a great sense of joy and accomplishment when I heard him say that because I was unsure of my tutoring skills, and this gave me some confidence.

My second lesson started at 11 o' clock, but I didn't have much time to read about my text student or prepare myself for the next lesson. The lady I tutored was from India and she had 3 kids she loved to talk about. Right when she sat down, she showed me her homework that she was proud of and I graded it. Everything was right that she copied down except she spelled one word wrong. She didn't get discourage but right away erased her mistake and corrected it. We went through her lesson which consisted of writing letters and recognizing ending sounds of words, vowels and consonants. I told her many times "good job" because she was doing an amazing job. A couple times, I told her she should be tutoring me and that made her laugh. At the end of the lesson, she thanked me a couple times for my time. I felt good about both lessons, and went a way knowing that I contributed just a little bit to their journey of learning English.

NALC (5 Hours)

I tried scheduling tutoring time for one day, but for the week I requested, NALC was booked. Instead, they offered a banquet that I could come and help set up. I got there at 10 o' clock in the morning and walked into the school. When I first entered the school, I was greeted by a security officer who directed me towards the gym where I would be setting up. I somehow didn't turn down the right hallways and made my way into the principals office and recognized I was the only white person. Right as I walked in, the kids who were seated in the beat up chairs stopped talking, and every eye was on me. I talked to the secretary and asked if she was able to direct me towards the gym and she did. While walking through the hallways, I noticed that this school was falling apart, and it could really used a transformation. The lockers were old, bent, and were starting to rust away. As I opened the doors of the gym, I noticed 3 older guys setting up tables, and I soon realized that I was the first Belmont student to arrive. It didn't take long until I met up with the NALC staff and we started to set up. We started off by setting up tables cloths and that's when two other Belmont students arrived and helped out. About one hour into setting up, a man came on the intercom and told all students that they were not able to leave their classrooms because they were in what was called, a lockdown. I obviously felt some sense of curiosity and wanted to go out in the hall and see what was going on. While in lockdown mode, we just kept setting up table cloths and taped decorations to the tables. Meanwhile, it was great to talk to other classmates outside of class and get to know them a bit and share experiences about NALC. After the tables were set, we started to set up drinks, cups and more decorations. I passed out 100 trivia cards about the United States government on each row of tables. Obviously, this banquet had a patriotic theme because many students were in the middle of studying for their citizenship test and they were recognizing the best tutor and students. 

Overall, it was a great experience to work with the NALC staff and other classmates. It was also great to see even in a run down school what some called "worse of the worst", it was great to see some of these students still being cared for. It is so easy to forget and brush off the kids who don't have the best grades or who are a pain to deal with in the classroom and it's refreshing to see those kids matter to somebody.

How am I connected?

I am connected to the culture of my project because I am majoring in Audio Engineering Technology here at Belmont University. I started off at a small suburban production company my friend helped me get, and it has been going from there. I then moved over to working for my church and helping with their production ministry. I've always been interested in recording studios, but it hasn't been until the last couple years where I've been academically interested. Also, I am connected to the culture of my project because I work in a professional recording studio. This way, I have access to professional opinions to commercial recording studios, and then I have my friends to go to when I have questions about home recording.

Digital Short Video

My digital short compares the rates and costs between commercial recording studios and home studios. I had a great time recording and editing this video, it was really fun!