Noelle Knight

Service Learning Final Paper

Connie Spanton-Jex
INTR 1100
December 05, 2014

Service Learning is a big part of maintaining the relationship between SLCC ITP students
and the Deaf community. Service Learning helps and affects several different people in several
different ways. Service learning may also have several definitions, but it is only because it
affects us all in different ways. There are several different ways to perform the service in service
learning. Even though I have been involved with service learning once before the things Ive
learned this semester has helped me in different ways than before. Even though I will use the
experiences that I have learned this semester in the future, this doesnt mean that I dont look
forward to learning things in the future. I have only done a couple of volunteering projects
during this semester but as the other half of the service learning project I met with my mentor,
Leanna Gale. Even though I might not always be doing service learning in school I would always
hope to continue to learn not just through continued education but also through volunteering.
Service learning is imperative to learning the experiences that will help me survive in the
interpreting field. Having experience with not just interpreting but also the interaction between
the people you will be working with is important to being hired in this competitive field. Making
connections within the community in more than one way than just a professional manner will be
beneficial to me in more than one way. By maintaining relationships outside of just professional
contacts and learning everything about the people we will be working with in nonprofessional
setting we find new ways to find new solutions, make the right decisions, and become better at
our jobs. Its almost counter intuitive to make and maintain nonprofessional relationships for
professional purposes, but connections to all sorts of people in all sorts of setting comes in handy
when you are trying to gain experience in a field that is constantly changing along with its
consumer. On the other hand, making sure that we do have strictly professional relationships
with certain people can benefit us also.

Although service learning can benefit me a lot it also benefits the people that I interact
with every time that I leave to go volunteer. The Deaf community has been greatly benefited by
the ITP students that have invested their time to getting know who they will be working with for
the rest of their life. Not only have we help set up parties but we have helped them become more
acquainted with other Deaf people, help other hearing people see that Deaf people are more than
just their deafness, and to help advocate and encourage for hearing and Deaf interaction. I hope
that this type of symbiosis continues far into the future and helps all that are in need. Although it
helps many people, it has affected them all in different ways which in turn changes their
perspective and meaning of service learning to them.
Service learning may also have several definitions because we all learn from our service
in different ways. One of the best lessons I learned from service learning is tolerance of
differences in people. I always liked to think that I was open to all kinds of people, but as I got
into service learning I learned that you can never anticipate what you will encounter while
working with cultures that you are not a part of. This does not mean that I did not accept the
people that I encountered it just means that I have become even more educated about the world
around me. It can also help me immerse myself within the different cultures and learn more
about them as to help my understanding about them. All of these experiences has not only
broadened by horizons and my definition of service learning. This broadening of my horizon can
also help find new and exciting ways to help the Deaf and hearing community link together that
benefits both of them (University).
I also researched other ways to start of other service learning projects and I found a way
to help teach elementary kids about Deaf culture. I thought that firstly teaching them about the
difference in hearing and Deaf culture and incorporate that into an activity. I thought that the

activity should be something that included their creativity. I thought the best way was to show a
way that a Deaf person and they could work together to help their communities symbiotically. I
think the best way to educate people is to start when they are young and when their brain is
basically a sponge. Also when people are young they are very open to suggestion, open minded,
and accepting over all. I also try to keep my mind open in all situations, such as my experience at
the ESL Lab at SLCC.
With my last experience of service learning in the ESL Lab where I was a tutor for
several foreign exchange students trying to learn and prefect their English skills. I was able to
meet several different kinds of people coming from all over the world. This type of interaction
helped me learn about people that I may come in contact in the future in my job, such as one
situation where I was paired up with a woman named Gloria. Gloria was originally from Mexico
but moved to the States about eighteen years ago. She had never learn English because she did
not have the means to. She decided to better herself and go to college so that she did not have to
rely on other to speak for her and that she could go throughout everyday situations without
feeling left out. I was really inspired by her determination to press on even though she had such a
hard time getting into a program that would actually help her do what she needed. Her telling me
her story of hardships and how she felt not being able to communicate with people and how
frustrated she was helped me apply that to the perspective of Deaf people and get even just a
little closer to actually stepping into a Deaf persons shoes.
I really liked this situation and would hope to get involved with this type of situation
again. Probably the best way to get to do this again would be to offer to help tutor Deaf kids in
English, but Im not too sure that I am not really qualified to do so. However, it always a good

thing to combine both what Ive learned from past experienced and use it to help myself learn
from current situations.
One of the best things about service learning is the fact that it continues, such as the
project that we will we doing next semester. As a class agreed upon project we shall be helping
the Sanderson Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The particular part that we have agreed
on helping them with is the summer camp where all the Deaf children can go for a week to have
fun at field trips, make crafts, and interact with other Deaf children. I think that everyone in our
class will immensely enjoy interacting with the Deaf children and learning how to better
understand them. I really do hope that they decide to do a space/ planet type theme this year, I
honestly enjoy the Clark Planetarium.
I think this is a good opportunity because as ITP students in a college program, we dont
really have many opportunities to interact with many Deaf children. By being able to sign and
interact with these children we are able to broaden our skills and thus be able to handle a bigger
variety of situations in our future jobs as interpreters. On the other hand maybe the children will
become more comfortable with older hearing people and interpreters that they will come in
contact with for the rest of their lives. Deaf children, like any other collective group of children,
learn best while around their peers and can see others doing what they need to learn. Also, the
chaperons of the summer camp would probably be very over whelmed trying to take care of fifty
to sixty kids all at once without the help of the ITP students.
One of the best and most important thing I think I will learn this next semester while
helping out with the summer camp I would think the biggest thing I would even hope to learn is
learn how to read children signing even more effectively. I know as an interpreter that I will
encounter all sorts of situation, either as an elementary interpreter, or VRS, or even just as

freelance interpreter. Also having interactions with the chaperons that is running summer camp is
a good way to learn how Deaf adult in the Salt Lake region interact with interpreters and
interpreting students. Having all different types of interaction within the Deaf community is key
to me learning and become adjusted to my future career and the people that are involved with
that.
I have learned several things while working within the Deaf community; I hope to put
them into practice in the future during my career. One of the many things Ive learned during my
time while volunteering at the Sego Lily Bike Fundraiser was that the base of hearing people
willing to volunteer to help the Deaf community and involve themselves not only to better
themselves but to help others is much larger than I thought. This growth is so important to
getting the message out to all the hearing people that might potentially become friends, allies,
and even interpreters for Deaf people in the future. I hope to see this number grow even bigger as
I carry throughout my career as an interpreter and as a student.
I also helped set up for a Thanksgiving Party at the Deaf center for the ASL Club. I think
this was a good place to volunteer and help out the community, not only because it benefits me
and me increasing my signing skills, but also to help other hearing students improve theirs and
learn more about the Deaf community in its own environment. I was really happy to be
surrounded by people that I would potentially work with in the future and learn more about them.
This kind of service helped me also strike up conversations with my mentor.
I have learned several things while visiting my mentor over the past couple of months. I
really did like meeting with my mentor once with a week, even though sometimes it was only for
an hour and others it was for several. Throughout the semester as we have talked about different
ethical problems in our ethics class and I have taken many of these different situations to her to

see her perspective. I did this because, although we are interpreting students and we spent a lot of
our time within the Deaf community and among Deaf colleagues, it is almost impossible to
completely understand the Deaf perspective.
One of the several problems I talked to her was one that we had in our ethics book. The
one that sticks out most in my mind was An interpreter just finishes interpreting a D/deaf
couples childbirth at a local hospital. The couple is excited and has many friend within the
interpreting community. They ask the interpreter to announce at the local RID meeting she will
attend later that day that she gave birth to a healthy baby girl (Kellie Mills Stewart). My mentor
has never had children, but she has had several friends within the Deaf community have children
and she has shared a couple of experiences with me about them.
With the particular situation she thought that the interpreter should decline the offer and
have the Deaf couple announce it themselves. She also thought that the Deaf couple should have
all the joy of sharing the news first hand. I did agree with her, especially after she told me a story
about an interpreter telling everyone everything that happened during the birth. When the Deaf
parents heard about the interpreter giving intimate details that maybe only they wanted to share it
herself. She told me several other stories about incompetent interpreters and them sharing
confidential information. Probably the most surprising story she told was when one of her friends
was having a child and during the child birth the interpreter wanted to look at the mothers
undercarriage.
One of the other ethical problems that I was really interested in especially because she is
an elementary school teacher at JMS, and my little sister is considering going into teaching
elementary and even maybe Deaf students. I asked what her thoughts was on hearing people
teaching Deaf students. She responded by saying that he opinion varied by who it was teaching.

She said that she has seen very competent hearing people that love and respect the Deaf
community that are very skilled at ASL be amazing teachers for Deaf students. On the other
hand she has seen hearing people who have taken the basic classes of ASL and a teaching degree
in special education and decided that they would like to try their hand at teaching Deaf students.
She also said that she has seen Deaf teachers, that no matter how long they have been in the
community and have been signing that their skills for teaching sign language and helping
students just was not their forte.
In the end there is an abundance of things I have learned this semester, from the amount
of people willing to server the Deaf community to that when interpreting for a mother who is
giving birth in a hospital that I should stay fairly close to her head and not invade her personal
space. I have been extremely grateful of being able to get to know my mentor in a more personal
setting and strengthen our relationship. I am really excited for next semesters project of
planning and helping the Deaf centers summer camp run smoothly. I hope that I will always be
able serve within the Deaf community and learn from both my experiences and other colleagues,
allies, and friends.

Works Cited
Kellie Mills Stewart, Anna Witter-Merithew. "The Dimensions of Ethical Decision-Making: A Guide
Exploration for Interpreters." Burtonsville: Sign Media, Inc., 2006. 117.

University, Colorado State. Definition of Service Learning. 1993-2014.

<http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/service_learning/definition.cfm>.