My Final Service Learning Moment

During my service learning experience I got to tutor high school and middle school basketball players. I was able to help the students study for their test and in some cases I helped them study for their ACT/SAT test. The program’s goal is to prepare these athletes for a higher education so that they could not only be athletic, but also have the academic skills needed to pass their classes and graduate.
On the surface, the program seemed to be a very well rounded play to tutor, but once I was able to work with some of these students I realized that their minds were focused on other things. Many times I would try to get the students’ attention towards their homework or other studies and all they wanted to do was talk about basketball or surf the web. Many times the students would even ask me to do their work for them in order for them to go to the gym and practice their basketball skills. With the students that I was able to work with, I saw no real learning improvement and/or growth with the time that I was there.

I also observed at this service learning that the students were very much reliant on the internet. One student had a book that was less than 120 pages and asked me if he could find this book’s summary on SparkNotes. Another student was taking an open book take home quiz and googled every answer instead of using his books and notes.
One student in particular, was searching the internet for the summary of a book he needed to read for a project due the next day. The book he had to read was Fahrenheit 451. To make this long story short, the book touches the topic of the importance of books. In the plot of the story, books are banned for their portrayal of “life's tragedies and of the fact that books contradict and refute each other.” There are certain people in the story who wish they could have defended books or could have saved books from abandonment, and regret taking the books they once had for granted. Throughout the book there are—not specifically in the place of books or trying to replace books—many “advanced” electronics and different technologies that the characters use. The author of the book Ray, Bradbury, says that the story was “about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of factoids, partial information devoid of context.”
I gave that particular student the example of today’s society and how many people in our generation would rather sit in front of a TV or computer and get their daily information verses reading a newspapers or book. I tried to plant in the student’s mind the idea that the book may be trying to tell its readers something about the value of books and the knowledge we can obtain from them.
The student did not understand the connection that I was trying to make with the book and “real life”. I began to connect the actions of the students in the room to the actions of some of the characters in the book. I mentioned the other student, who would rather look on SparkNotes than simply read the short book. I gave him the example of his friend who used google to answer every question on his take home quiz verses using his notes and book. I even used the example of the other tutors in the room and how they interacted with the young athletes—the tutors were engaging in a full debate about the NBA lockout and Chris Paul being traded instead of helping the student athletes study and do their homework.
All of the other tutors were looking up videos on ESPN.com or recalling something they saw on TV the other day. I seemed to be the only one sitting back from the rest observing this supposedly “learning environment.” I explained all of this to that student and he began to understand where I was coming from. He then started to tell me how people only want the fast and easy way. He also gave me a long drawn out explanation as to why he feels books should one day really be banned. The student also said, “books are boring and they take too long to get to the point . . . plus if we banned books wouldn’t that save more trees or something?”
I could understand what that student was trying to say about saving trees, but to never be able to pick up a book again would seem unrealistic; where would people’s facts and references come from if not books? The internet is changing every day and can be altered by any one at any given time—in most cases. With that being said, the next generations to come will lack more and more knowledge—actual knowledge and not just want they see on TV or read on the internet.

Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed my time and experience with Elevate. I want to become a teacher, so it was a great opportunity, not only for my resume, but also for me to actually practice the field in which I will one day work in. I just a flaw in the program that could be fixed before the students get this idea that the internet and TV is their only source of information and knowledge.