Location
Engagement and Service-Learning Summit
Description
This project of Pax Populi was presented to the students in the Honors course called Beyond Afghanistan taught by Dr. Brite as an opportunity to do service learning. The goal of Pax Populi as taken from their mission statement is to “put the tools of peacemaking into the hands of ordinary people through initiatives that advance peace through education and economic development within a framework of human rights.”
The tool we used in this case was Skype web conferencing to communicate with an Afghan tutee the students were individually partnered up with to teach English skills to whether they be reading, writing, or speaking. The things learned in class about the culture of Afghanistan were applied to make the tutoring sessions more engaging, interesting, and comfortable for both the tutor and the tutee.
The impact this service learning seemed to have on the students involved with tutoring was that we realized how much we took our education and freedoms for granted, whereas the Afghan tutees were struggling just to find the time and safe environment to come to class or Skype with us. As a result of doing this project, I learned a lot about myself. I even have a few journal entry reflections regarding my various ideas and realizations as I went through the project that I could present. My greatest takeaway from this was the lifelong friendship that I will have with my tutee and the joy it brought me to see his English skills slowly develop throughout the course of the tutoring sessions.
Included in
Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Educational Leadership Commons, Educational Methods Commons, First and Second Language Acquisition Commons, International and Comparative Education Commons, Other Linguistics Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons
Pax Populi: Utilizing Technology and Education as a Means to Achieve Peace
Engagement and Service-Learning Summit
This project of Pax Populi was presented to the students in the Honors course called Beyond Afghanistan taught by Dr. Brite as an opportunity to do service learning. The goal of Pax Populi as taken from their mission statement is to “put the tools of peacemaking into the hands of ordinary people through initiatives that advance peace through education and economic development within a framework of human rights.”
The tool we used in this case was Skype web conferencing to communicate with an Afghan tutee the students were individually partnered up with to teach English skills to whether they be reading, writing, or speaking. The things learned in class about the culture of Afghanistan were applied to make the tutoring sessions more engaging, interesting, and comfortable for both the tutor and the tutee.
The impact this service learning seemed to have on the students involved with tutoring was that we realized how much we took our education and freedoms for granted, whereas the Afghan tutees were struggling just to find the time and safe environment to come to class or Skype with us. As a result of doing this project, I learned a lot about myself. I even have a few journal entry reflections regarding my various ideas and realizations as I went through the project that I could present. My greatest takeaway from this was the lifelong friendship that I will have with my tutee and the joy it brought me to see his English skills slowly develop throughout the course of the tutoring sessions.
