Text/Service Reflection:

Zehara Eckert

9/18/11

Text/Service Reflection: Freire reading in relation to first MCCS visit (also readings from City Kids, City Schools)

The quote that sums up my experience in relationship to our first Friday class with the MCCS students is “Right thinking is right doing” (Freire, 39). This quote stood out to me because it really emphasizes putting words into action. A lot of the time I’ve noticed people think one way but their actions contradict their thinking. This class advocated thinking for change and I strongly feel that we are not only thinking about it but we are actually doing it, which is amazing. “Intellectuals who memorize everything, reading for hours on end, slaves to the text, fearful of taking a risk, speaking as if they were reciting from memory, fail to make any concrete connection between what they have read and what is happening in the world, the country, or the local community” (Freire, 34). This class won’t be an example of this quote because our professors (Julia and Lynn) are giving us a very real experience and not just requiring us to memorize information and recite it back to them in exams. I never imagined that I would take a college course where service learning would be incorporated as a part of the curriculum. I am really glad and excited that this is the reality because the academic knowledge I will gain from this class will further benefit me because it also provides me with hands-on personal experience to make it relevant.

I went into Friday’s class with the MCCS students with no expectations. I told myself I was going to take and accept the experience simply for what it was. I didn’t want to set certain standards because I didn’t want to set them to high and be disappointed nor did I want to set the standard to low and be shocked by how much better it was. I wanted to be free of biases and let the living experience teach me. When we did the icebreaker exercise where we all had to find three interesting things that we all had in common, I noticed that during that period of time, our different education levels, our age, and our social status didn’t play a part, which was really cool. It kind of took me back to pre-school where all I cared about was finding thing in common with the other kids and nothing else mattered. There was such a beautiful ease in how we exchanged our likes, dislikes and interests in our Friday's class.

Both Freire and City Kids City Schools emphasized the importance of appropriate emotional expression in the educational environment. For example, in the chapter by Monique Redeaux Ellis, one of her students’ was shot by a police officer and that story was described in great detail. A police officer shot Ellis five times and hit him three times when he was stopped because he matched a description of a robbery suspect in his neighborhood. Ellis had attempted to put down his BB gun and the officer mistook it for weapon and shot at him. The officer’s answer to justify his behavior was that he had a split second to analyze and react to the situation. During the investigation Ellis’s father asked the police board “As the father of that boy, I want to know one thing; did his race or community play a part in the split second decision” (Redeaux, 87). I think this story supports Freire’s point about how important it is for us to acknowledge our attitudes, process, perception and to question our reasons behind these. To tie it back to the chapters that we’ve read and to our first Friday class with the MCCS students, I believe that part of education should be to recognize appropriate expression towards injustice, disloyalty and violence. Part of the educational role should be to understand the expression of these feelings. After all, these emotions are incorporated in the very fabric of learning and questioning knowledge.