Expanding Elementary Teacher Education Through Service-Learning by Sulentic Dowell Margaret-Mary;Meidl Tynisha D.;

Author:Sulentic Dowell, Margaret-Mary;Meidl, Tynisha D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Vignette: The Garden Project (Sulentic Dowell, 2008)

In this elementary literacy course, community gardens were established at a local elementary school. The gardens became a catalyst for many learning experiences for the school’s children. The city where the university was located and where this study was conducted reflected the de facto segregated education system found throughout the southern United States; White students typically attend either private, Christian-based “academies” or public county schools located in “White flight” communities surrounding urban centers while Black students predominantly attended public city schools.

Margaret-Mary set expectations and provided pre-service teachers with a demonstration of what she expected from them when on site in the school’s gardens. That meant she dressed for gardening, interacted with staff and students, and she participated fully in planting, weeding, dead-heading, and harvesting the gardens. Margaret-Mary took great care to ensure that school and community center schedules coincided with university schedules.

As a means of assisting pre-service teachers’ understanding of this community, they visited homes and collected literacy narratives about family gardening practices. This assignment resulted in pre-service teachers involved in the Garden Project learning a great deal about the community in ways that traditional assignments could not yield.

Often, comments surfaced during class discussions that illustrated how pre-service teachers’ dispositions were shifting regarding the students and communities with whom they were interacting through the Garden Project and epitomized the reciprocal, mutually beneficial nature of the embedded service-learning experience. Reflections also yielded data that illustrated how the service-learning experience was transformative.

One pre-service teacher continually expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to work in the school gardens; she shared how this experience was more helpful to her than any other practicum field experience, as she was “forced” to examine her own belief system and feelings. Service-learning was extremely valuable for this student who, like so many others who participated in the Garden Project, became knowledgeable about social, economic, and linguistic difference. Thus, the literacy service-learning experience allowed pre-service teachers to internalize course goals and objectives, and to examine how their personal belief systems are shaped by their world views.

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