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Japnam Jassal
Dr. Fowler
PS 1010
28 April 2015
Reflection paper
Political Science gave me the opportunity to examine a particular problem in Detroit and
try to find viable solutions to it. The problem that my group focused on was literacy. I always
knew the importance of literacy for an individual to obtain a job, but I didnt know the scale of
the problem in Detroit. In this course, I investigated what the causes of the illiteracy problems
were, problem solving efforts, barriers to these efforts, and suggested some potential solutions to
it.
In my research over the course of the semester, I was most interested and surprised by
Detroit Public Schools ineffectiveness to provide a quality education system. While literacy in
Detroit is a problem in both adults and students, I believed that there should at least be
meaningful progress to improve public education. This belief was compounded when we read an
essay by Garfinkel that emphasized how America always placed literacy and education in high
regard. I found that the most cumbersome barriers were things like funding and an unorganized
school system. However, even though a lack of resources is such a major aspect of so many of
Detroits problems, I was surprised to see that in the past 6 years, little has been done to actually
reform the school system. With Detroits massive student population, an inefficient and
unorganized system simply compounds the problems with having no money. I am currently not
planning to continue working on this problem as I dont think I truly have the means to really
influence the issue. However, it has become clear that literacy in Detroit is such an important
aspect to its residents standard of living and society as a whole.
The process of group work was interesting for this course as I have not written group
papers very much. However, I thought it was effective technique to cooperate and discuss a
wide range of ideas. I thought the group was especially effective in the policy and stakeholder

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memos as we each studied individual aspects of the issue, and this made synthesizing ideas in the
final paper much easier. Overall, the group was helpful and made learning easier. The only con
that I encountered with group work is in the final paper. With four or five people writing
different sections, it is difficult to maintain a consistent style and voice in the paper. However, I
do think that all the assignments that we did prior to the final paper made it much more doable.
I think the most important skills I learned in this course have to do with citizenship and
government. Prior to this class, I, like many others, had the mentality that the only thing that I
could do to solve issues is through direct action (volunteering) and there was little to do in regard
to institutions. However, this course taught me that effective citizenship is possible if one does
extensive research, knows about how government works, and has the will to influence policy. I
think that this knowledge will definitely come into use once I enter my professional career. With
this course, I am well equipped to investigate problems and search for solutions from the vantage
point of both community organizations and policy advocacy.