The Benefits of Community Service :: Community Service Experience Paper

A typical school day for many University pupils consists of sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture. While there is great value in this style of study, my community service work has taught me the many benefits of learning not only from professors, and also from fellow classmates, partners in the community, and individuals at volunteer sites, regardless of their age or educational background. It has also taught me to be an spry member of our community and to share the burdens and responsibilities that goes along with that role caring about the living conditions of others.I am very interested in literacy so I chose to volunteer at the Literacy Center and work with 11- to 16-year-old students after school. On my second visit to the center, I ate dinner with a 14-year-old boy and asked him how his day had gone. He said he didnt like his reading class, and I asked him why. He replied, I read at a third-grade level. I was extremely shocked and didnt know how to respond. Afte r a minute of silence, he asked me if I k raw about the Spanish_America War. I told him that I had just learned about it last semester in my college storey class. He said he had to write a paper on it and asked if I could review what hed written. I was amazed a 14-year-old student was writing a paper about a piece of history I hadnt even known existed until I was nineteen.This discussion gave me a new perspective on the concept of literacy. I learned that when considering what literacy means, its important to consider not only an individuals ability to read and write, but also his or her total cache of knowledge.