Spanish Service-Learning Students
We asked current and former SSL students to offer comments on the program.
Here are a few of the students and their insights.
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Name: Boris Nikolic
Service Placement: El Pueblo/Duke University construction sites
Spanish for Health Professions
Which service-learning course did you take? What did you like or dislike about your service?
I took 106A, which is Spanish for Health Professionals. To be honest, there is nothing that I disliked about the course. I had a lot of hands-on experience with people in the community, my classmates and with the professor and a great overall experience.
Do you recommend service-learning?
It is one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had at Duke. This is a class that allows you to interact with the local community, with other people that are working with you on a project and to take what you learn in class and put it into practice. I would recommend service-learning to anyone.
Do you recommend it to everyone? Or is there some kind of skill or mindset that you should have for service-learning?
I think I would recommend it to everyone. Anyone that goes to college should have some sort of experience that allows them to be very innovative in terms of how they approach their work. And this is a class that has real application and that lets you be very creative. And to have the feedback you get from your classmates as well. It gives you the ability to lead your own project and to develop those kinds of skill-sets that are important for work and life after college.
How has your service-learning experience influenced your life here at Duke?
I had a lot of experience with work abroad and I had never realized until the fall semester of my junior year that I belonged to a greater community. It opened my eyes about people and events in Durham and how Duke is trying to facilitate the relationship between the university and the outside community.
How has your service-learning experience also changed your view of the Latino community in Durham?
I found the service-learning experience to be very enriching and eye opening because I, for example, had not been aware of the influx of the Latino population in Durham and how hard life in a different culture and a different lifestyle can be.
What do you think were some of the challenges you faced or in what way could you have been better prepared for the experience?
I think the biggest challenge to service-learning is finding a good project to apply what you learn in class. But I don’t necessarily know if people in my class have not had a good project because as far as I remember, everyone felt happy with their assignment.
How important is the service-learning portion to the class?
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It is incredibly important. Actually, I would say something like 65 or 70 percent of my learning happened outside of the class. The class is used as a place for reflection and guidance whereas the actual service-learning opportunity is where you do all of your work.
What did you feel you achieved? Was there a final product?
For my project, I worked with El Pueblo, which is a non-profit Hispanic organization headquartered in Raleigh. I administered surveys to Hispanic men and middle-aged men about drunk driving legislation in North Carolina due to the high incidence of Hispanic men involved in drunk driving accidents. When I heard that about 75 to 80 percent of the population that works at the construction sites at Duke was Hispanic, I started interviewing some of these construction personnel and higher officers. My product at the end involved not only interacting with these people, but also having the ability to educate. Thus, having the ability to help someone change their life by giving them more information about the laws here and the dangers of drunk driving and making it a group effort at educating these people.
How would you describe the service-learning experience? How would you describe the philosophy and the experience itself?
It is a very practical experience that allows you to put knowledge to work, be creative and interact with the greater community, which is unusual for a class. In many ways, I can also say this class is somewhat spiritual and that I learned about life outside of Duke, which is very important and should be important to everyone.
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Name: Anu Kotha
Service Site: Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC (Durham)
Spanish for Health Professions Fall 2006
What are some of the challenges you faced during your service learning?
Some of the challenges I faced were how to interact with a lot of the Latinos clients I was working with. In class we learned about the basic background of some of the problems a lot of the Latinos clients faced here and the different barriers that were caused by the culture or language perceptions. But actually applying that knowledge and actually trying to get those Latino clients to trust me and not look at me as an outsider, a privilege college student. But rather someone who actually wanted to work with them and understand their stories was definitely the biggest barrier that I faced.
What are some of the accomplishments/good times during your service learning?
The main accomplishment that I’m very proud of is the final product of the actual service project. I was able to make a packet of informational sheets in Spanish for a lot of the Latino clients for the Food Bank, churches, and other community organizations to post on their walls and hand out to Latino clients. It gave them a better understanding of what the Food Bank was in Spanish. And also training about a 100-plus employees at a meeting on how to interact with Latino clients, how to speak some minimum Spanish, and to break down some of the stereotypes they had about the clients.
Do you recommend service learning, to whom? Why or why not?
I definitely recommend service learning. I had an incredible time doing it. I think anyone, no matter what their major is would really find this beneficial to help oneself grow. It allows people know more about Durham and also to really contribute to the community needs in a very concentrated manner.
Briefly, how do you describe the service learning experience?
My experience was definitely a lot about adapting and creativity in terms of developing materials and figuring out what the next steps they had to take were.
How important was the service learning portion to the Spanish course?
I think the service learning was the best part of my Spanish class. It was great to bring in the stories that I had from my client site and the experiences that I had. Also, talk to the rest of the students and to my professor to get their advice on these experiences and figure out what I could do next. I thought it made the knowledge really concrete. I really understood what I was doing because this experience.
How has your perspective or view of the Latino community in Durham changed since your service learning?
Part of the service learning experience, I just had the basic textual knowledge from newspapers and hearsay. But actually working with the Latino clients the different barriers in terms of overcoming the language barrier, figuring out where to work, making enough money, and taking care of the family whether it was in Durham or whether they had to send money back home to a foreign country. Just the obstacles and difficulties that a lot of these people had to face just really became real clear to me. And it’s really made me want to continue working with the Food Bank and hopefully working with an organization like this after Duke.
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Name: Patricia Agustin
Service Site: Jordan High School
Spanish 106C Issues in Immigration and Education Fall 2006
What are some challenges you faced during your service learning?
How the students viewed me was very important. I was in a weird setting because I would come in and it was just a lecture class. I did not have time to get to know the students. So the students would view me as another person who comes in to help them translate materials. I didn’t really get to know them, which was very disappointing. Opening up to get to know the students is very important.
Briefly, how do you describe the service learning experience?
Rewarding, because the students improved in their vocabulary but it was also frustrating because I did not have a close connection with the students.
How important was the service learning portion to the overall Spanish course?
It was definitely important because everything we read in class correlated with what I saw in the classroom. I remember reading a lot of articles that mentioned how latino students and immigrants in general are always at the bottom of the rung. I definitely saw that, especially at Jordan. They were very isolated.
Do you recommend the service learning, to whom, why or why not?
I definitely recommend it. I recommend the Jordan service site because you can see the parallels to the class. Anyone interesting in working with the community and applying that experience to the classroom and vise versa should participate in the service learning program.
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Name: Lauren Bollinger
Service Site: El Centro Hispano
Spanish 109 Spanish Linguistics Spring 2007
¿Que tipo de retos te has enfrentado durante tu servicio comunitario en El Centro Hispano?
Tenemos que hacer entrevistas con las personas quienes son los miembros más importantes del Centro para hacer un proyecto llamado Quinceañera. Este proyecto es un esfuerzo para publicar y celebrar el servicio del Centro durante sus quince años. Reportamos los logros de las personas que primero llegaron al Centro para pedir ayudar. Vamos ha crear una publicación sobre la historia y el progreso durante los quince años de personas que han llegado al Centro Hispano. Una de las personas a quien yo he entrevistado se llama Maritza y su historia es muy interesante.
¿Como puedes describir tu experiencia en El Centro Hispano?
Ha sido muy interesante. Hemos tenido diferentes experiencias, entre los voluntarios ahí. Pero yo he hecho una entrevista y la persona a quien entreviste, su cuento es magnifico porque ella llego de Venezuela y El Centro Hispano le ayudo a encontrar trabajo. Ahora ella misma puede ayudar a otras personas como El Centro le ayudo en el pasado.
¿Cuáles son los acontecimientos o buenos ratos durante tu servicio en El Centro Hispano?
Básicamente las entrevistas han sido magnificas igual que todo el tiempo que he estado en el Centro. También, he conocido mucha gente buena que ayuda a todos los que llegan al Centro.
¿Recomiendas el programa de servicio y aprendizaje en español?
¡Claro que si! Las experiencias que he tenido, aunque mi servicio no ha terminado, son muy interesantes. Especialmente la historia de Maritza es muy interesante. Me gusta mucho ayudar en El Centro Hispano.
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Name: Kyle Danielson
Service Site: Durham County Public Schools- Durham School of the Arts
Spanish 109 Spanish Linguistics Spring 2007
What are some of the challenges you faced during your service learning?
I really did not feel as though there were a lot of challenges about my service learning. The teachers and students with whom I worked were very receptive and flexible. I did learn, of course, that the rest of the world doesn’t check email as frequently as Duke students do, which provided some frustration occasionally.
What are some of the accomplishments/good times during your service learning?
At the risk of sounding cliché, the greatest accomplishments that I made during my semester of service learning were the relationships that I was able to begin, both personally and with the community. Not only did I build relationships with a specific school and specific teachers, I also was able to work with about 60 students in helping them to learn Spanish. Additionally, my service work allowed me to meet some students and their families that needed extra help learning the language, and I actually had the chance to work in some students’ homes, which was very rewarding.
Do you recommend service learning? To whom? Why or why not?
I would highly recommend service learning, but not to everyone. Service learning requires a level of commitment that, given the busyness of campus life, is not always an asset of every single Duke student. I experienced this semester the difficulty of working with one or more Duke students that were unreliable and irresponsible at their service site, and it provided difficulty both practically and relationally. Spanish Service Learning is an incredibly rewarding experience for those that are interested in the Latino community (and related issues) here in Durham. However, I am pretty strongly of the opinion that students shouldn’t take Service Learning courses at Duke if they’re simply taking the course to fulfill some other requirement. Service Learning only works if the student wants to be there. If so, it’s great.
Briefly, how do you describe the service learning experience?
The service learning experience was, at first, somewhat scary. I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t know how I would be received in the Duke community (especially in the midst of the campus culture issues we’ve been facing). I was worried that I would be received as insincere, and I almost intentionally hid from my community partners that I was there as a part of a class. But, as I continued in my service, I grew more confident that I was truly offering something valuable to the community. My service teaching Spanish at DSA was something that they truly needed, and I know that I made a difference in the lives of my students, which is truly awesome. When one parent told me that her son had finally come home “excited about Spanish,” and that he had “never been excited about school in his life,” I knew that I was in the right place.
How important was the service learning portion to the overall Spanish course?
In my course, the service learning portion was certainly applicable to what we were studying (the course was in sociolinguistics). My specific assignment was less applicable, because I was teaching Spanish to domestic-born Americans and not working directly with the Latino community. However, when discussing linguistic issues, I certainly feel as though my service learning experience brought some valuable insight to course discussions.
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