Learning Through Doing: Service Learning in Teacher Education

All staff and students have pseudonyms.  3:55pm       I walk into Mrs. Smith's classroom; there is no one else inside the room. The woman from the small Foothills sign-in room comes to the door. She tells me that there is no English teacher here yet so I am in charge since I'm the only one. I tell her, from my inquiries two days ago, that Dr. Meyer said she would be here. The woman says okay and leaves the room. From my position at the table I'm sitting at, she stops another teacher in the hallway. The woman asks her if she is working Foothills this evening; the teacher replies that she is not but if they are short-staffed she would. They both head back down the hallway out of my sight and hearing.  4pm      Dr. Meyer comes in the room with Chromebooks and a rolling bag. She puts everything on the table she uses sits at. Two students come in the room and sit down at desktop computers. Dr. Meyer gets out her own laptop as another student...

All staff and students have pseudonyms  3:5 0pm           I walk into CCHS and sign in at the Foothills office. The woman inside asks me if I need to go to English and reminds me that the classroom I need to be in for English says Smith above the door. Before I leave she says that she doesn't know if Mr. Dodd, the instructor I worked with before, is here today. I thank her and walk to the first classroom down the hall on the left.           I walk into the math classroom, and the only person in there is Mrs. Smith, the math teacher during the regular school hours of CCHS. She is busy gathering papers, binders, and other items she wants to take home. We exchange hellos as I sit down at a table, the view in front of me the classroom.           A woman with a binder and a cup comes in the classroom. She is a Foothills teacher that I have not met yet. She says hello to Ms. Smith and sets her things at a des...

All staff and students have pseudonyms.    3:50pm          As I walk into CCHS on Thursday February 8th, I see about 5 students waiting in the lobby of the school. Since this is my first visit, I try to go to the front office; after explaining that I'm a tutor for Foothills, the receptionist unlocks one of the glass doors to the hallway for me. I go to the door labeled "Foothills;" the woman that I met last week is inside. I remind her about who I am, and she allows me to sign in with the notebook that contains a sheet for each tutor. After completing that, she tells me that I'm early, and that Mr. Dodd., one of the Foothills English teachers, will be here shortly; I wait standing in the hall, unsure what to do. In a few moments, a man in a button-down and khakis comes to the little office. The woman introduces us; this is Mr. Dodd. We head to a classroom down the hallway.          We enter one of CCHS's math classrooms loc...

     Currently, I am a junior in the first semester of the English Education program at UGA. I have learned more about education in the last month of school than I thought possible. I know the long journey of discovering who I am as a teacher is still ahead of me, and I think this course will play a major part. Although I have been in two service learning courses previous to this one, I am excited about this specific service learning experience. In this class, I have the opportunity to work with high school students: something I have been waiting for since the day I decided I wanted to be an English teacher. In the past, I have experienced an elementary school with my educational psychology course and a middle school in a Shakespeare service learning course. Right now, I work with middle-schoolers as a part of the Teaching Writing cohort course. I have never been inside a high school with the purpose of learning for my teacher education. Additionally, I am excited that t...