Motivation to Teach Social Action:
I teach a 4th year seminar where 25 students are paired with social justice oriented organizations like tenant unions, community agriculture organizations and worker cooperatives. The main project for the class is a community problem based learning assignment where they find an issue on campus and work to solve it.
Last year was the first year that I conducted the assignment, and students focused on issues related to access to food. The students did research on the campus, and decided to form 3 projects:
- Community garden access/expansion
- Supporting the Campus Food Coalition co-op to offer free food to students
- Developing educational materials to inform students about their meal plan (cafeteria) dollars and provide options for a food bank/donation option
The students this year have decided to continue these projects and hopefully have them result in policy changes. I would like to learn more in terms of how to enact these changes and see what others have been doing, and to learn more about these projects in general.
Course Description:
Students work for 5-7 hours per week throughout the academic year on the tasks and projects assigned by their placement supervisor. The work might involve general program assistance, event organizing, preparation of documents, tutoring, service provision or participating in community activities.
The 2-3 hour seminars meet weekly for much of the first term and then less regularly, according to the program of workshops and speakers. The seminars are spaces for: peer-learning, experience-sharing and problem-solving; hearing from community-based speakers about their experiences; talks on topics related to community engagement and social justice; discussion of scholarly articles and other materials on different aspects of community engagement; workshops on skills and practices for community engagement; and facilitated collective reflection activities.
The syllabus includes: an overview of the social purpose sector and some of the issues faced; frameworks of social change; and different forms of community engagement and social justice work. It takes up questions and themes that emerge from students' experiences in their placements (so the syllabus can vary year by year depending on students and placements).
Assignments include most importantly, regular, written reflections and in-class small-group discussions that grapple with the practical, organizational, ethical and social justice issues that come up for students and allow for thinking that might lead to ethical, personal and career development. There will also be a one or two blog posts, a collaborative designing and delivery of a workshop for the class, an end-of-year symposium presentation, and a final paper where significant learning from the whole year is synthesized and highlighted. [1]
Taught By:
Kevin Edmonds
Assistant Professor
Community Engaged Learning and Caribbean Studies
University of Toronto
Read profile here.