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Assignment
5: Reflections on Relationship between Various Class Projects for
This Quarter
By
the end of this quarter, our class will work on several different
projects with the children and teachers of Wilton Place Elementary School. These
projects include our weekly site visits to Wilton Place classrooms, a booklet of student writings
from the five classes of children, a tour of UCLA for the children,
and an end-of-the-term reception for the children and their parents
at Wilton Place.
In
most UCLA classes, it is easy to see assignments and projects separately. However, in this class it’s important for students
to see the relationship between these projects and to work with
children and teachers from this perspective.
For
this reflection journal, write about how you see the relationship
between the various projects in our class.
In other words, how will your work with the children on the
booklet connect with your weekly site visits and the end-of-the-term
reception? Similarly, how can you use the various projects
to help teachers and their ongoing work with kids on improving reading
and writing skills?
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Youth Empowerment and Service Learning
By Cheryl Samson
The title of our class is: "Community Education:
Youth Empowerment." and according to the class syllabus the
overall theme of the class is a combination of "the concept
of Service-Learning with the founding philosophy of Asian American
Studies." Service-Learning is a pedagogy that allows students
to take classroom knowledge and apply it in the community. It also
involves reflection and critical thinking as a result of the action
to produce a new level of understanding. This is what Paulo Freire
would associate as "praxis." "Praxis" can be
defined as the reciprocal relationship between theory and action,
when both theoretical concepts are carried out through action and
action produces new theories. Asian American Studies was developed
to bridge a connection and enhance the relationship between academia
and community. It was developed to engage students within the various
API communities, outside of the university to actively work with
members and address issues that affect the API population. Due to
historical waves and patterns of immigration, the API population
in Southern California varies in terms of class, generation, language,
sexuality, age, ability, association, etc. Los Angeles, and Koreatown
specifically, are areas of no exception. Our class addresses the
needs of elementary students, mostly Latino and Asian American at
Wilton Place Elementary School.
We are rapidly approaching seventh week and
already we have actively participated in several projects exploring
the community of Koreatown as well as the area of education. Some
of the projects we are about to participate in include the making
of a booklet, a tour of both UCLA and Wilton Place Elementary School,
and a closing reception. Each project is related through recognizing
the value of education and its impact on youth of color. As we see
currently in higher education, especially in our public universities,
the student population does not demonstrate equal access to education.
The majority of students are White and Asian American coming from
mostly middle and upper class backgrounds, graduating to pursue
professional degrees in order for them to maintain their economic
comfort and privilege. But, how does this affect working class,
immigrant, communities of color who constantly seek for methods
of survival on a day-to-day basis? How does this affect the youth
in these communities? Why do we not see equal representations of
class and ethnicity in public institutions that used to be free
for the general public? Instead, these elite institutions represent
the specific population that can "afford" a quality education
and "afford" to rise financially, and those who are not
prepared, or "lack the proper resources" are weeded out.
This process trickles down and takes place as early as elementary
school where students of color feel excluded or neglected within
the public school system and our pressured to the limitations of
prioritizing labor over education. Already at this age, less emphasis
is placed on the importance of higher education and instead how
they can become better workers. After working with the second grade
students of Mr. Osumi’s class, and asking them about college
and their future career goals, we found the majority of these insights
to be true. Most of the students did not understand or know the
purpose of college and its role and some of the students glorified
working over education.
By making a booklet with the students, we are
allowing them to express their views on personal issues such as
family, the community of Koreatown, and important things in their
life. The booklet is something tangible for them to hold on to demonstrating
their potential to produce something that they can take ownership
of and value. Working on the booklet also enhances their writing
and literacy skills, skills that will help them throughout their
educational experience. The UCLA tour allows the students to see
college life as something attainable and provides them with educational
goals, opening up possibilities for their future. Lastly, the reception
celebrates the hard work and time invested in creating the booklet
and allows them to celebrate the value of education with college
students, teachers, members of the community and their family.
All these projects provide the support and encouragement
that these Asian and Latino American youth need to direct them towards
higher education and understand its importance and value in their
lives. By implementing these projects, as college students we are
actively engaged in these students’ lives and by typing these
reflection papers we are able to analyze the impact of our activities
and interaction with the students as well as their impact on us.
The readings help give us the theoretical background and ideas to
implement in the classrooms that we work in. This is how we apply
the pedagogy of "service-learning" in our class. Following
the mission of Asian American Studies, through these projects we
are addressing the educational needs of the youth in an Asian American
community, in this case, Koreatown, and working with organizations
and community members to make higher education something attainable
and accessible for everyone. In this society, mobility and success
is isolated and contained within a select few, and as students and
members of our communities, we hold the responsibility to work towards
attaining basic human rights and equality for everyone.
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