Course Meeting Time
Fall 2009
Tuesday/Thursday 1:00pm - 2:15pm plus ONE "lab" time at Crocker Farm Elementary School.

Lab times are:
M, Tu, W, Th: 3-6pm and W 1-4pm

Lab times include time for travel to and from the school (which is in Amherst on the bus route).

Course Description
This course introduces you to the practice of Community Service Learning—including how to engage effectively with a community through its people and organizations and how to learn deeply from that experience.  In this course you will encounter and learn from people who have different experiences, opinions, racial and ethnic and class backgrounds from yourself and you will get to know yourself better. You will develop skills for experiential learning and for taking charge of your own education—including observation, journaling, and learning circles—that you can use during your UMass education and beyond. This is a four-credit course that fulfills the Interdisciplinary and U.S. Diversity Gen. Ed. requirements.

Section Description: Kids/College
In this service-learning course students will work directly with a group of elementary aged youth in a local afterschool program developing fun and enriching activities for the youth involved. Additionally, students will participate in the larger aim of the afterschool program to provide an early intervention for college access for under-represented youth. The program aims to provide a vision of college for children who, even though they live in a University town, may not ever see college as a real destination for themselves due to issues such as race, class and poverty.

The course will explore a range of contexts for the work, including: introduction to contributing social issues such as poverty, race and class, social identity and self-understanding in relation to these issues, social issues in the context of school, town and home and will explore avenues for constructive social change. Through inquiry, research, service, discussion, presentations, and reflection students will deepen their understanding and skills for working with youth and explore societal impacts on achievement and access to college. In addition to class time, one afterschool service time per week is required.

Students must register for one afterschool course service time ( C1, C2, C3, C4, or C5).

How to Sign Up
You can register for this course on SPIRE.

Instructor Information
Carol Soules
csoules@comcol.umass.edu