Vacuuming and Mommy

As the semester continues, I have gotten the hang of sorting clothes and the most strategic way to vacuum the hallways of the Salvation Army of greater Lafayette. As much fun as it is to do community service with absolutely no interaction with other people, I was thinking about how I could gain more hours and how to maybe have a little more fun with it. Then I naturally thought of my mother. My mother is a physical therapy assistant. Her job is in high demand and she could go anywhere to work with patients of any age. She however chose to work at a nursing home in Valparaiso, IN. Over the years that she has worked at this nursing home, she as invited me to come to work with her, like a bring your daughter to work day. When I go, she tells me how much the residents in the home love meeting new visitors, especially since I was her daughter. When I go I like to ask questions to my mom's patients while they are doing there therapeutic exercises. She always says that just a conversation really does change their entire day. My Mom goes above and beyond in her job that she forms relationships with people who may not even be her patients in the nursing home. I have come with her a few times in the past to just help out and wanted to take this opportunity to help her again. If I have to do community service for a class, I might as well do it with my mother!!! Yayy!

My Little Part

In the glamorous world in which we live in always have situations like the stories on the big screen. I’m talking about how life is like the movies. It’s always so enchanting, helping the world, and paying it forward. Well even though that is how service learning is supposed to make us feel, I know as I was vacuuming the hallways this was not the joyful feeling running through my veins. After I finished the vacuuming and then was assigned to clean the windows, I began wondering what is the purpose for this? How am I really helping the community by just being a janitor? Then I thought back to my orientation with my supervisor at the Salvation Army in Lafayette. She said that they keep a very small staff in order to direct most or their funds toward the local community rather than extra hands, like a cleaning service. So as insignificant as I felt sorting used clothes and scrubbing windows, I thought about the approximately $30 that it would have cost to hire out those duties. Instead I, the volunteer, spared just 3 hours out of my week to help with the mindless tasks. I bring attention to this point only to show how important every little job is important. Out of the many lessons that service learning may provide to each student, this is one that spreads throughout many aspects in the world. It’s like the saying in the theatre, “there is no such thing as a small part, just small actors.”  This reiterates the point our small 30 hours of service with these organizations really does help the community. So next time when I vacuum the Salvation Army offices, I will remember that I am doing a small but important part to help the Lafayette district.

Why Service Learning?

Service learning is an interesting concept for a composition course. On the first day of class I was slightly thrown off by how this was going to tie into the enhancement of my writing ability. Once I started the search to find an organization in which I would be interesting in working with for the 30-hour class requirement I discovered the connection. I soon realized that contacting the group members who work with the community organization required a professional approach. This closely ties into different styles in which compositions are written. Like discussed in last class’s lesson, we must use the appropriate style to connect to the target audience. This applies in both conversational and compositional situations.  For example, when talking in our English class it is a casual setting compared to an interview, business, or other professional scenario where the dialogue would be proper and formal. When I actually got in contact with a representative from the YWCA, I started the conversation in a professional manner. Progressing through the conversation, I found that the representative and I had some common interests, which allowed a more comfortable and casual discussion.  The point of this is to show that the way we converse with people is just like our approach in writing a paper. The goal is to appeal to the intended audience in a way that grabs their interest and makes them want to know what you are talking about. Making yourself or your topic important to someone else is hard to do. The art of persuasion really comes in handy when trying to make a reader or conversation partner understand your intension. To close, understanding how to use conversation and composition together takes special skill. I believe this is one of many reasons in which service learning applies to our class format.