Coverage

Dominican's Honors newsletter, The Angel, featured an article about Service Learning in this most recent issue. Check it out at the Dominican site by following the link!

http://www.dominican.edu/academics/specialprograms/honors/angelvol18.pdf

Making History

History shall soon be made in regards to the Service Learning Program at Dominican.  A few students from Marin County Community School (one of our "most popular" community partners) will be coming to Dominican to engage in a sort of Campus Visit Day.

On November 17, a small group of MCCS students will come to campus.  They will eat lunch in Caleruega, take a tour around campus, and listen to admissions and financial aid tell them that attending Dominican is very much a viable option for their futures.

This is truly a step in the forward direction for the partnership between MCCS and Dominican.  Creating an environment in which the students from MCCS can feel comfortable in confronting that which is terrifying to all of us--the nebulous quality of the future--is an amazing step for progress.  By fostering a more reciprocal relationship--in which not only DU students visit MCCS but MCCS students come here--we will better fulfill our mission of being service learners and members of a larger community beyond the insular halls of traditional education.

Milk

Recently I have been hearing a lot about the movie "Milk", featuring Sean Penn. Some of my colleagues have been thinking again about the times of social unrest, civil rights movement and constant struggle in their lifetime. They were telling me about the times of Harvey Milk, and how much he meant to the gay civil right movement. While listening to them talk, I sensed that there was great emotional response triggered by this movie. The comparison of the struggles in the past, and the current ones were drawn. In my opinion, there has been a lot of change in the rights of the LGBT community since times of Harvey Milk. I also think that if Mr. Milk has not been killed, and in turn martyred, we would be living in a different country that would not even think of men and women of the same sex getting married or adopting children. Even my colleagues agreed that someone usually dies for the progress of the many. The question in my head popped up, why?

Why is death necessary in order for others to realized certain things. Virginia Woolf once said that people have to die in order for others to value life more. I wonder if we are that blind, as to not see some obvious problems in our lives and society in general, that an individual has to be sacrificed to open our eyes up.

 

Service Reflection

Throughout the semester I have been working with some great people at the Administrative Offices of The Superior Court of California. Their dedication to what they do is very inspiring. 

In particular, the person I am working with, dedicates at least 13-15 hours of her life every day to progressing her cause. This kind of dedication is very unusual to me, since I have not seen anyone be that passionate about what they do. Not only is she passionate about her work, she gets recognized for what she does yearly, by getting awards and recognition from higher ranking officers.  But, what I noticed is that she is very humble and no matter how much success there is in her wake, she keeps her head and continues to work by helping low income people with their legal issues. The amount of time she spends working with broken families to work out custody battles and alimony issues pays off. What is the point of this blurb? I would love to be able to have that kind of a job, where I love what I do, as well as make a difference in the world. I believe that this is endeavor is one of the most ethical things a person can do, even without millions in the bank. Anyone can write a check, but only a few make a real difference in the community by gracing it with their presence and effort. 

Imaginary Strangers

I spent almost every Friday afternoon in October and November completing my service learning at Giant Steps Therpeutic Riding Center in Petaluma, CA. The following quote from one of the books we read in class helped me make sense of my service experience.

…the great lesson of anthropology is that when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but, if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end. (Appiah Cosmopolitanism pg.99)

The important message that I have taken away from my service learning is that children are children, they are not their disability. It is easy to look at an autistic boy and think of him as an autistic, but really he is just another child with numerous things to offer the people that interact with him. The time I spent at Giant Steps was time that I wouldn’t usually take to laugh and spend time with people, but when I was there, even though I was working, I got that opportunity. The children that were once strangers became a part of my life. I had a connection directly to them even if it was a small one. They are no longer imaginary strangers. The time I spent with them gave me time to start to make sense of them and even if I didn’t always know exactly why they were there it became unimportant because no matter what their disability they were ultimately there for the experience just as I was even if their experience was different from mine it still connected us.

Rethinking Freedom

No one can just say I think the meaning of freedom is such and such; one has to really experience this first hand.  For me going to Tehran, Iran and seeing such a disassembled country, made me appreciate everything I have here in America.  “Most people would be excited about freedom; I’d thought…Power not freedom is the real object of desire” (Alford 11).  This is exactly what it comes out to be if one is deprived of freedom, they solely want to get power and rise above others.  Creating this paradigm shift in what really is the meaning of freedom.

There's more than just Ethics

In doing my Core Issues research I came across the idea, in several places, that service-learning is good for academic performance and a feeling of involvement in school. Of course we have heard various times that indulging in service learning is a different and more complex way to learn the issues presented in an ethics class (since after all ethics involves people, not just yourself and your books). But I wondered, for a bit, how doing not-entirely-altruistic community service could possibly be a benefit past such a class or college applications.

Then, of course, it occured to me. Service learning generates an event to look forward to. Additionally, it can be an ego-boost at times to be good enough in anything to be able to help someone else with it. Also, abstract concepts in books--concepts you know you questions the relevance of--can suddenly make sense in the context of helping others.

Given all that, it's no wonder DUC has this program. Now we just have to extend it so that all students get to experience it at least once. Everyone deserves that chance for personal growth.

rediscovery of awe

In Schneider's Rediscovery of Awe, he talks abt. shifting from competency based study to awe based one.He looks at "attunement as not simply intellectual appraisal or behavioral awareness, but as a sustained encounter with the most intimate regions of experience". He also addresses tragedy as integral to life experience and confronting ambiguities that brings strength and self-realization to people developing a "sense of life that both includes and yet transforms the suffering they have undergone and that intensifies their daily living. In my educational advocacy work, I have encountered families of children with disabilities having truly, intimately confronted "chaos and human dread" every day. Enabling them to use "neglected perceptual capacities" to see how"the cultivation of ambiguity and paradox directly parallels the cultivation of awe: (it is the stark realization of our dialectical nature - before creation") is a helpful tactic to face polarizing elements within society. Acknowledging through service, complexity and diversity"also directs us to the peak of human hopes, dreams, and desires, alongside of that dread".