Enhancing Learning Through Service (Service Learning Experiences)

I think the theory of Tabularasa from John Lock represented myself and my knowledge about children two years ago before I came to the USA. I have no idea about young children although I love children and love working with them. I’ve ever worked as freelance teacher in a small daycare in my city as a literacy teacher before coming here, but still I was blank in handling them, even sometimes I stucked when the children asked me questions and I got mad easily when they did something differently from what I wanted them to do.

            After I came to the USA, I learned many different things about children. Now, I gained much information about child development, teaching strategy, the way to communicate with the children well, how to deal with the children, and so forth. It’s not all about theory, I also got a wonderful opportunity to get involve and applied the knowledge that I got from the lecture in the “real world” as an intern teacher in an International Bacheloriate school in Mesa, Arizona. During my service hours, I worked together with the teachers. I assisted the teachers in managing the class, preparing teaching materials, helping them in conducting center and circle time as well as getting involve in creating lesson plan.

            The best memory in my internship site started when a child asked me “Why are you wearing that kind of clothes?”. (I am a Moslem, and I always wear veil to cover my head as a compulsory of my religion). I was amazed by his question, but then I answered “This is what my religion told me to do so and it’s my culture. In my city where I belong to, almost all woman wear this kind of clothes. All people is different.” Then I asked him a question “Is that okay if we don’t like the same color? Can we still be friend if our favorite color is different?”. He said “yes”. “See, then it’s okay if we’re different!”.

            After this conversation happened, I found an important information from my professor related to my previous experience with the child that it is beneficial to exposs the young children to the differences so they have idea that there are many people live in another side of the world live in different time from us, eat different food, wear different clothes, live in different type of houses, play different games, etc. The idea and the moment brought me to conduct a presentation about Indonesia to the children. After getting permittion from the teacher to conduct the lesson, I shared the children about the georaphy, map, flag, traditional games, poem, clothes, and greetings of Indonesia. The children enjoyed my presentation even they asked me many questions about Indonesia. It’s not only the children learned and gained the information about Indonesia, I also learned a lot from the children. I learned how they express themselves, how curious they are about new things. I realized that all children around the world love to play badly after I found out that American children  play the same game with Indonesian children do.

            I found that the community service is very beneficial because it enhances all theory that I got from the class. In addition, I gained so many practical experience in teaching, I was able to exchange my culture with the children, and built new network with the teachers and staffs in the school.

Ainol Mardhiah (Aceh, Indonesia)

CCIP grantee 2013-2014