By Cassady Jeremias
On-line Forty-Niner

Students enrolled in certain classes may be surprised to learn they are required to go out into the community and get their hands dirty as part of the curriculum called service learning.

The community service learning program was introduced to Cal State Long Beach in the late 1990s as a way to integrate community service into a class, where students are able to learn from the service they do as it relates to their major and give back to the community. Professors are intrigued by a more direct way of teaching and therefore volunteer to integrate the program into their classes.

“Some are looking for a way to enhance their curriculum, making it interesting and engaging. All students learn differently,” said Carina Sass, community partnership coordinator for the CSULB Community Learning Service Center.

Linguistics professor Malcolm Finney sends students out for his graduate seminar in literary development to the Long Beach Public Library. He said they get so much more out of a class when they get involved.

However, the service learning classes are not marked in the course catalog, causing some students anxiety upon finding out they enrolled in a class with a set amount of service learning hours required outside the actual course time.

“I tell them the very first day,” Finney said. “A couple students may drop out because they are already taking too many classes. I have experienced slightly lower enrollment, but at the end of the semester students do say it was really beneficial. It is slightly more work than a regular class.”

He said some students believe that their education does not relate to the real world and this is a way to make it relate.

Some students are apprehensive before going out into the community. Barbara Snow, a liberal arts major said she was nervous before going out to teach remedial reading at a junior high, but after being immersed in it, she ended up doing more than her 45 required hours and receiving an award for her efforts.

In addition to helping children by reading with them, and doing group activities, she said it helped her narrow her ideas for career goals.

“Before I was pretty much not sure of what grade I want to teach. Now I know I want to teach 6th, 7th or 8th grade,” she said.

Clifton Franklund teaches a microbiology class that involves service learning. They have arrangements with a junior high school in Long Beach.  Franklund’s students bring materials and microscopes to the junior high and do demonstrations.

“They learn much more by teaching than by any other way. You have 90 percent retention by teaching,” he said.

The service learning center sends up to 1,000 students a year into the community to work hands on with all kinds of people. Sass said students not only learn about their major, but also that they can change the world.

“It was a good experience, but you have to put forth an effort to get something out of it. If you are unsure, if you want to be a teacher, this is a great way to find out. You learn strengths and weaknesses as you go,” Snow said.

There are about 20 to 30 classes per semester participating in the program, with about 200 different agencies throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
 

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