Abstract
This paper describes three different service-learning approaches the authors utilized in graduate art education students and incarcerated residents at a municipal jail facility. By situating our experiences within feminist theory, we analyze and unpack the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Through an analysis of teacher and student journal entries we came to see that our level of responsiveness to residents needed to increase as compared to our considerations of the university students. We came to see the significant knowledge that the residents hold about excellence in teaching and created an opportunity for the university students and ourselves to learn from the residents. We also identified three areas, breaking stereotypes, awareness of privilege, and showing empathy, that created change in the university students. We believe that service-learning in pre-service teacher preparation programs allows university students to learn from and with residents, thus helping to create more empathetic future teachers.
Highlights
This paper describes three different service-learning approaches the authors utilized when working with graduate art education students and incarcerated residents at a municipal jail facility
Each faculty member works with the Richmond City Justice Center (RCJC) educators to determine the format and structure of each class, and the service-learning looks very different from class to class
As professors reflecting on our choices, we can see how initially we considered the needs of the university students more than the needs of the RCJC residents
Summary
Virginia Commonwealth University is a large, urban, research university recognized by the Carnegie Foundation as one of 54 universities nationwide that is “Community Engaged” with “Very High Research Activity.” About 2.5 miles from campus is a municipal jail facility, the Richmond City Justice Center (RCJC), which incarcerates approximately 900-1,200 men and women at any given time. A faculty member from the English department at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) began teaching classes at the RCJC Over time, he involved his students and this evolved into a well-established multidisciplinary university-community partnership through which dual enrollment university classes are taught at the RCJC with VCU students sitting side-by-side with the RCJC residentsii. He involved his students and this evolved into a well-established multidisciplinary university-community partnership through which dual enrollment university classes are taught at the RCJC with VCU students sitting side-by-side with the RCJC residentsii This program has grown to involve faculty and students in several departments – English; Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies; Religious Studies; and Art Education. Building a shared understanding of interaction and respect was essential so that comments which could alienate or “other” the RCJC residents could be avoided
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