Course Description:
This course gives students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture from the perspective of social justice and responsibility through their community service. Students develop advanced level communication skills through discussions, reflection essays, and presentations. Taught in Japanese.
This course gives students the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture from the perspective of social justice and responsibility through their community service. Students develop advanced level communication skills through discussions, reflection essays, and presentations. Taught in Japanese.
Reflective Narrative:
During my time spent here at CSUMB, I’ve had the opportunity to take many wonderful classes, but one of them that I think will stay with me long after I have finished my degree is Service Learning. I took this course in the Fall semester of 2017, and I learned about what it means to be a teacher. In this class, we learned about the difference between ‘serving’ and ‘helping’, distinguishing that one comes from a place of selflessness and one comes from a place of superiority. This really resonated with me, because I always had this idea that I wanted to help people, and it hadn’t occurred to me that it could be interpreted badly. The idea that someone could be made to feel less than or insecure by being helped was distressing to me, so learning that ‘service’ comes from a place of equality was reassuring. I was glad for the opportunity to learn and practice this ideal.
My group was assigned to Del Rey Woods Elementary School in Seaside, Ca, where we taught twelve 3rd to 5th graders who were a part of the CPY Program. Through participating at CPY,which aims to help underprivileged children, we addressed Service and Social Justice. Each week we would develop a Lesson Plan that would teach the children about different aspects of Japanese culture. We worked very carefully on the group dynamics of the children that we were working with, trying to make sure that none of the children were marginalized, and making sure that the kids didn't form little cliques or groups that would exclude others, which increased Social Awareness for us and the children. We tried to make sure that they were all on even ground. Through this process, we were not only able to teach the children about Japanese culture, but help them understand it by relating it to their culture, as the children were largely Hispanic, which ties into our SLO of Multicultural Community Building. Through this, I feel that we were able to fulfill the exchange that that denotes ‘service’, which is the aim of this service learning program, and helped us to gain a deeper sense of Social Responsibility and Community. For our final paper, we wrote in Japanese and talked about our experiences and how what we did completed our Service Learning Outcomes. The SLO's were Self and Social Awareness, Service and Social Responsibility, Community & Social Justice, and Multicultural Community Building/Civic Engagement.