Critical Reflection 1

Ayanna Berg

Prof. Emily Wu

CASC 3400

3 September 2019

Critical Reflection Final Draft

Response : As we have learned, Service Learning (SL) is a combination between educational/learning objectives and community service. It’s different from volunteering because not only are we being of service, but we are also learning curricula and applying it in the process. My role as a service learner in the community, is to be of service and help others achieve better qualities of life, and help them where they need assistance the most. In addition, my role will also include bringing positivity, and support to the community that I am helping. This semester I have chosen to work for Rotacare, where I will function as a translator between patients at Rotacare, and their doctors, and during the days that are needed, I will also scribe for doctors if/when I am not translating for the patients. Rotacare is a free health care center that support the community that does not have equal access to health care in comparison to other communities. I’m not quite sure how I could broaden the spectrum for my community engagement through Rotacare, since I will have the opportunity to speak with patients during my time there, but I am sure that in enough time I will discover better connections with the community, and hopefully serve as a good support system for the program for my time there. Some of my previous volunteering experiences consisted of nearly the same work that I will be doing for Rotacare, which is translating. I worked for Congressman Tony Cardenas as a Spanish interpreter for Case workers. Some of the fundamental parts of my job, involved understanding the several different socio-economic disadvantages that constituents were going through, and finding them programs, and aligning them with case workers that could best assist them with what’s going on. Through translating alone, it allowed me to understand the full spectrum of what was going on, and working alongside case workers allowed me to learn so much about the community around me, and how I could best support everyone. I am eager to learn about a new community outside of the ones that I am familiar with at home, and I am excited to be able to help those in need. According to Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, critical thinking “is a general approach, which means to think with complexity, to go below the surface when considering an issue, and to explore its multiple dimensions and nuances.” (Sensoy DiAngelo 23) Meaning simply, think more about a certain topic and consider all angles of it. Critical Theory is explained to be “the scholarly approach that analyzes social conditions within the historic, cultural, and ideological contexts.” (Sensey DeAngelo 23) Lastly, Critical service Learning, although I did not explicitly see a definition for this in the reading, it is the framing service learning as an opportunity to learn about differences and similarities, and encourages students to create authentic connections and urges participants (us students) to consider what our identities are and the identities of the community around us. This class is an example of that.