Service Learning Reflection #4

While reading “Inventing the University,” the idea of privileged language and the discourse of academic writing seemed particularly relevant to experiences at NALC. I have always been somewhat uncomfortable writing in an academic setting.  I feel that there are so many technical details required and a certain way of writing to make one sound knowledgeable and authoritative of their work.  I feel I often do not possess these certain skills or rather, am not fully capable of accessing this particular language.  While thinking about my particular education in reading and writing it struck me that the people I have been tutoring have similar struggles.  Though they are not necessarily performing in an academic forum, I am the teacher and their audience.  My knowledge of the English language places me at a level where I am familiar with certain terms and discourse.  This is what the students of NALC are trying to learn.  They are trying to become a part of this world of privileged language.  It therefore becomes a comparable situation.  I am writing for an audience of which I am not familiar with their particular discourse and the NALC students, the non- native speakers, are trying to learn the ends and outs of the specific language.  Though we may both possess a basis of the language, we may not be particularly knowledgeable of the ‘insider’ vocabulary and terminology used.  This can prevent both of us from exploring these languages.  The fear of using the wrong term in front of our audience can hold us back from learning as much as possible.  Every time I sit down to compose a paper anxiety consumes me.  I am afraid that my point does not come across in their language and I will be deemed a bad writer or uninformed on the subject.  This is mimicked through the students of a foreign language.  Often times the students become very self-conscious about speaking at NALC because they are afraid they will use the wrong term or what they say will not make any sense.  In these situations we tend to filter ourselves.  Confidence level is diminished when I, as the writer, and the foreign speaker are aware that we are unfamiliar with the particular discourse.  We end up choosing our words carefully.  In order to overcome this barrier we have been told to practice what we learn.  We have to learn to integrate what we have learned into our basis of knowledge.  Though we may never be entirely comfortable with this “privileged language” whether it be academic writing or foreign speaking, we can get a basic understanding and knowledge that will help us in the future.

Service Learning Reflection #3

Through my interactions at NALC I have been able to connect what I have encountered to reading in class.  What I find so amazing are the sacrifices that people make for education.  This theme was extremely prevalent in Three Cups of Tea and through talking with J. I have witnessed that educating children is worthy of extreme sacrifice.  While reading Three Cups of Tea the story that seemed to remain with me long after I finished the book was that of Uzra Faizad.  She was the teacher in Afghanistan who refused to stop teaching her all girls’ class during Taliban reign and America’s continual bombings.  She truly cared about her students receiving an education: “Here was this strong proud woman trying to do the impossible.  Her school’s boundary had been blown to rubble.  The roof had fallen in.  Still, she was coming to work every day and putting the place back together because she was passionate about education being the only way to solve Afghanistan’s problems” (284).  This sacrifice in order for children to be educated was paralleled in the story of J.  She left the comfort of her homeland, her native language, her family and everything she knew in order to provide better education for her children.  She moved her kids here and sent them to David Lipscomb while her husband stays back in their homeland and works.  Both of these women show a tremendous amount of courage and sacrifice.  It is a concept that, here in America, most of us could never fathom having to do.  We so often take for granted what we are provided and education is one of the things we tend to look at with a passing glance.  Our educational system definitely has its faults but compare it to other countries and we should realize how lucky we are.  These women have made education their lives and we can learn so much from their stories.  They have had to adapt, make numerous sacrifices and show extreme courage in order to make their goal of education come true.  Their day to day lives are shaped by education in one way or another.  In the case of J., she has had to learn a new way of life, a new language, and being the only visible parent in order to provide a better education for her two kids.  Uzra has devoted her whole being in order to change the lives of Afghanistan girls and provide them with better lives. It is because of women such as these two that we can have hope for our future generations.

Service Learning Reflection #1

What I find so intriguing is the fact that I keep referencing my memories as a foreign language student to help me to understand and connect with the participants of the Adult Literacy program.  Because of my experiences as a student of a foreign language I find that I am able to relate to what these people are trying to accomplish and some of the setbacks that they are encountering.  Since English is my native language and obviously comes to me naturally at this point, I would find it more difficult to relate to what they are going through if I did not have prior experience of learning a new language.  So far in my tutoring, the students have either been from China or Korea and already have a good basis of the language.  Their goal in coming to Nashville Adult Literacy is to practice conversational English. After discussing with them the difficulties of learning a new language we have concluded that is especially difficult to listen to and carry on a conversation with a native speaker because they, usually unknowingly, speak fast and use slang terms.  Similar to my own experiences of learning a foreign language, the students can pretty easily read and write but it is the listening and speaking that prove to be a continuous challenge.  Because of this knowledge I feel that I am not only able to relate to them more easily but feel that I may be truly helping them.  I feel that because I can open up to them about some of my failures in learning a new language it sort of breaks the ice and helps them to know that I understand what it is like to be in their shoes.

As far as the lesson plans go, I definitely see similarities to how I was taught a foreign language.  Both this program and my learning of French rely heavily on list of vocab words to translate and understand and exercises developed to further the understanding of the language.  But for me, as well as for the students that I have tutored, it is practicing speaking through conversation that is the most beneficial exercise.  This is where we are able to pick up on the nuances of the language and learn all the lessons the grammar books do not teach us.  The biggest difference I have noted between my literacy experience compared to that of the NALC students is the fact that my learning experience was a chosen elective.  Other than for my pleasure and hope for going to France, my learning was not necessary.  I was given the option of what language I wanted to take and the option of how hard I wanted to study in order to retain the information I was learning.  While the NALC students still have the option of how hard they want to study, for most of them learning English is somewhat of a necessity.  Though most of the participants I have taught have enough knowledge of the language to get by, they want to improve upon what they know in order to have a more successful life in America.  

Local Table

A large portion of Local Table is devoted to the various CSA's offered throughout Middle Tennessee.  It breaks down the CSA's by county and then gives a description of what each farm provides.

The magazine also gives a list of Farmer's Markets available throughout the region and a blurb describing each one followed by hours of operation and contact info.

One of my favorite tools offered by the Local Table is the Local Table Seasonality Chart offered on the back cover.  It gives a list of produce and the months when they are at their peak.  This encourages people to buy their produce when it is at its peak and most flavorful.  This is a step away from the supermarket idea of produce being available at all points throughout the year.  As a result of the phenomena, food is being shipped from all over the world, picked before its perfect ripeness and places on store shelves.

Local Table is a seasonal magazine published throughout the year, archiving the growing number of farms available for CSA's and different local businesses.

Three Cups of Tea

So many of us have this preconceived notion of the countries in the Middle East.  What we think is heavily influenced by the media who portrays people from the Middle East as highly religious extremists.  Greg Mortenson is able to offer us a different view.  Through Three Cups of Tea Greg offers himself as a window for us outsiders to be able to look into the lives of these people.  We are able to learn who they are and what they stand for.  He was able to be as much of an insider into their culture as any “outside” person could be.  He accepted their views and ways of life and therefore was “let in” to their culture.  He became an outsider who acquired insider knowledge.  Because of his nature, Greg was able to easily adapt and be welcomed into many different groups.  As a result, he is able to explore and gain insider status into many of the groups within Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He starts in the mountain town of Korphe but is let into many drastically different cultures such as the large city Rawalpindi, to the secretive Wazir, and finally into Badahshan. With each meeting he gains new knowledge and shares it with his readers.  Because of the respect he earns he is able to break barriers down between men who had become enemies and gets them to work towards one common goal, education.  He not only educates these children but he educates us.  He offers glimpses into these people’s lives and offers up a different way of thinking for us. He enables the readers to let go of their preconceived notions and look at this as an opportunity for growth for all parties involved.

            Greg shares his story as told through his eyes.  He not only lets us in to these people’s lives but into his life as well.  He gives the reader enough details of his own personal life to garner our attention and trust.  Because of this we are willing to listen to his story.  He shares the many triumphs, failures and hardships he endures not only in his personal life but in trying to build schools in Pakistan.  Since he shares his vulnerabilities the reader is able to realize he is not out to promote himself.  He really wants us to listen to the message he is trying to convey.  Though it may seem sometimes that he gets stuck in this rut of self-righteousness the people of Pakistan are able to quickly draw him out.  Because of the way the book is set up as a time-lined story, the reader is able to share in his failures and wait excitedly for his accomplishments.  He is able to draw his reader in to the story and offer them the precious gift of being able to see what an education really provides.

Letter

Hey mom! So I am pretty excited about my project for third year writing.  You know how passionate I am about Local Food and eating as much as possible from farm to table, well I am doing a project centered around local food.  I could go on and on for days about everything involved in local food and I am kind of having a hard time editing down what I need to do because I know that I am not going to be able to accomplish everything I would like to by the time the project is due.  My main focus is on why are people choosing to eat local food and invest money in CSA's and go each weekend to the farmer's market.  What kind of community does that entail?  So far I have interviewed N about working last summer and installing raised garden beds into people's homes.  I would really like to interview L about why she is involved with a CSA and what it means to her.  I want to talk to the owner of a local restaurant here that I am particularly infatuated with because he tries to source as many local products as possible. You know I am kind of obsessed with Alice Waters and this whole concept that she kind of founded and brought to the fore-front of having your own farm and producing everything you need for the restaurant on the farm.  This has become more prevalent across the country and I am just in love with this whole idea.  My next steps are to go to the Franklin Farmer's Market on a Saturday and possibly interview people but generally just write about my experience there. I would also love to get to go to Farmer Dave's farm and talk him but I know that he is probably going to be really busy since spring is starting and he will be delivering produce to all the local restaurants.  Another part of local food that I am really interested in are those people who are growing their own food, even if it is in their backyard of a neighborhood house.  Why have people made this change from accessing all of their food from grocery stores to planting, growing and harvesting their own food?  I am particularly fascinated by programs such as Edible Schoolyards where they are trying to install gardens into schools and have the kids grow food and learn how to cook and sit down and eat together.  This is so important, especially now when most kids are eating fast food or out of a box and eating it while watching tv or playing video games.  There is no longer that community of preparing the meal and sitting down together at the table and we are loosing so much by no longer participating in this. I love watching Anthony Bourdain's tv show No Reservations, where he visits other countries and learns about the traditional food they eat and prepare together.  What happened in our country where we are no longer interested in doing this? It is so sad. Ok hope you are having a good day and I will talk to you later! Love you. - Alex

Interview with N

With America's food habits laying heavily on our minds, people have started going back to basics with choosing what they eat.  I spoke with N who spent the previous summer installing personal gardens into homes for a local landscaping company.  Organic plants in tote, he and his co-workers set out to build raised bed gardens, install plants and teach people how to grown their own food.  The focus for these personal gardens was for people to obtain the experience of growing, caring for and harvesting their own food. N emphasizes this saying, "They [the raised bed gardens] were duel purpose.  They could be flower gardens but they were mostly intended to be personal farming gardens to help people get into growing their own food rather than purchasing it".  Regardless of how much or how little they knew these people were interested in the experience of growing their own food; having weather patterns affect what they ate, as well as finding what grows best in this region.  With this came the inevitable community that often develops around food.  People were swapping around vegetables with friends, giving away their over abundance of crops they couldn't eat themselves and trading ideas and recipes for what to do with their freshly harvested food.  I have this notion that the majority of the people able to access and buy local food are from the middle and upper classes but N quickly corrected me by saying, "we also installed beds at schools and low income neighborhoods trying to help kids rather teach their parents about proper eating and food nutrition".  It all comes back to educating people and trying to get people to get back to their roots with eating.