Honors Service Learning 1

Craig McKenzie

Course Substitution Proposal

Honors Service Learning, UH 3204

Substitute for: 3cr Social Change Elective

Jacob Grohs, Course Instructor

A leadership in practice and context course, Honors Service Learning provides students with a rich opportunity to both see and use different leadership styles in practice in a preschool setting. Through two components, a 4-hour field component and a 1-hour recitation, students learn to recognize problems and debate possible solutions to social issues in education and families.

            The “Where I’m From” project allows students to reflect on their individual values and gain a greater ­consciousness of self. The project allows individuals to take a self-inventory of what their background is and compare it to their “Local Context Project” where the community served is explored. Additionally, the idea of service is discussed and debated as to what people should be expected to do. In this way, an ideal person is imagined that everyone tries to emulate: congruence. Links to what citizenship naturally requires then follows, as we are all just people working together towards a common goal. A citizen is part of a community that we are all trying to improve through social service and developing leadership.

            Service learning requires a great deal of commitment as we are working not for us, but are held accountable by the entire community: the kids, parents, professors, teachers, and university honors. Working together with the other committed students teaches that our ideas are often different and that collaboration and group resolution is often the way to work towards a common purpose. In our case, that common purpose is improving the educational well being of several preschool aged children. The course allowed an outlet, especially in the recitation, to read and watch documentaries about education as a social issue. Debating these topics allowed each of us to understand that we all want to see a positive outcome but had drastically different ways to get there. While maintaining controversy with civility we listened and discussed several issues with education reform as well as intra-family issues. Recognizing the differences and everyone else’s backgrounds helped me to understand why each person has a unique perspective to a situation obviously needing reform.

            This course is meaningful to me because it allowed me to apply and extend on knowledge from my other courses to meaningfully create change in a students life. While dentistry is my ultimate career goal, I love working with kids and can see myself in pediatrics. Additionally, I am passionate for education and this class allowed me to explore that more. Someday, I hope to give back to my field by teaching in a dental school.