Service-learning Reflection.

Consider the effectiveness of the project, considering each compenent and reflecting on your learning experience as well as the impact on the school or community?

My social action project is one that checks all the boxes, it creates awareness to the topic at hand, this means that this project has brought awareness to the topic of creating a better cleaner and safer environment for the students, this is done by focusing on bathrooms of Curro Wilgeheuwel. Daniella Rodrigues and I focused on brining awareness to the social action of keeping the school clean and tidy and having respect for your surroundings, we did this by creating two beautiful murals in the bathrooms used by the foundation phase learners, there were also posters of the correct handwashing technique that were placed in the bathroom, the learners were made aware of the issue by visual aids, the murals created. This educates learners and unites them to keep their bathroom clean and tidy, the mural is a tool to use to motivate the learners to keep it tidy, together we explained that the mural is therefore, we keep our bathrooms and school clean to match this mural, this unites the mural because they will all work together to make the school clean ad uniting them keeping their mural in mind. The parents received an email stating that their children will be involved in this process and the mural will be theirs as it made up of their handprints, the parents will be asked if the learners will be allowed to be involved and if they have permission to be in photos of the process. This unites the families and us as we are making the parents feel involved in the decision-making process and show them, we are making efforts to improve these learners’ environment. This impacted the school and the community because the learners will take what they learnt about keeping their school clean and will take this knowledge out into their community.

The successes and challenges of the project

Successes: The project I worked was a great success, one of the many ways was the students had a great amount of fun doing it, the excitement when being called to put their hands on their mural was amazing to see, they waited patiently for their turn, while giving me so many compliments on how pretty they think the mural is, it also brought the students together as since the mural was completed the learners began picking up their litter in the bathroom and the surrounding area as they wanted to be proud of their school which was the purpose of the entire project, the project was also a success in the fact that the learners were fond of it as well, it gave them a new found sense of patriotism for their school and they had a sense of pride, this once again shows that the mural did what it was meant to do, not only make the school look better but to motivate the learners to make their school better. It not only gained the attention of the students but the parents, the teachers and anyone else that visited the school premises, this made the wider community interested in the project making it even more of a success.

Challenges: Even with the success the project experienced there were some challenges experienced, some of these challenges included, the parents weren’t interested in contributing towards the project, the school wasn’t interested in assisting towards the project either, therefore the funding was left completely up to my partner and I. Another challenge that we faced was the fact that the bathroom was shared with not only the foundation phase learners, but the intermediate and high school learners would also have access to the bathroom, and they would mess around with the mural, smudging it in the process. And finally, the last challenge experienced was how time consuming the mural was, it took many days and attempts to finish, much more than expected.

How has service learning changed me personally?

Service learning has changed me personally in the sense of I now appreciate all the effort my teachers in primary school put in to make my schooling experience brighter and more exciting, even it came out of their own pockets, all the little things they did and the extra mile they took I appreciate even more now that I understand how taxing it may be. Branching off the previous statement I have also changed and adapted my problem-solving thoughts, when I was presented with the challenge of the older students messing with the mural, it took some new problem solving skills that I didn’t have and had never had the need to use before to solve this problem, this made me realise that I changed in the way my thought processing changed when presented with this problem.

How has service learning developed you professionally? What new knowledge, skills and/or attributes have you gained?

My service-learning experience has developed my ability to problem solve effectively, it has developed the knowledge and the skills of problem solving, when presented with the challenges that I was during this project it has given me new problem solving skills and knowledge to deal with these problems that I have never experienced before. It has also taught me new attributes that I can use when I have my own classroom of dealing with parents that aren’t interested in assisting, this is also new knowledge that I didn’t previously have.

Describe the benefit of this initiative to the school and comment on it's sustainability.

The benefit of this project was that it taught the learners a sense of pride that they should hold towards their school, this project taught the learners that it is their school as well and they have the ability to look after it and make it look as clean as possible, this benefits the school as they will now have a cleaner school for it and the learners have a sense of pride towards their school this is good for the school as when learners are proud of something they want to look after what they are proud of. When the students slip, and the school gets messy and has litter again the teachers can always refer to the mural in remembrance of what the students did and why they should keep their school clean. This is extremely sustainable as it was done with acrylic paint and has layers upon layers of coating that makes the paint impossible to peel off or wash off with water therefore, making it easy and no upkeep is required, making this an extremely sustainable project.