Lilly Chambers

ga0007
SOC 2000-501
Service Learning Journal
4/7/17
8:30-1:30

For the first visit to my service learning site, I was not sure what to expect. To

complete my hours, I visited the Junior Achievement facility in Detroit. This non-profit

organization focuses on preparing students for adulthood (and the workplace) in areas

like financial literacy. Despite knowing this prior to attending, I was not sure about what

my role would be. Upon entering the facility, I was struck by how new the place looked. I

guess I was prepared to visit a facility that was run-down or old simply because it was in

Detroit. I would attribute this pre-judgement to growing up in the suburbs and

having little experience with inner-city life. Instead of actually seeing the city of

Detroit for myself, I had listened to other peoples speculations. Ironically enough, many

of these people had not visited Detroit recently either.

Almost immediately after entering the building, we were instructed to meet with

the supervisor for the day for orientation. She explained to myself (and the other

volunteers) that we would be helping the students with a financial literacy simulation.

The app, which will be used on tablets given to the students, helps teach important life

skills to students. Specifically, the app creates a profile based on students answers

about career and life plans. At this point, I had to explain that high earnings are almost

always attributed to high level degrees. The student asked about the differences

between associate, bachelor, and masters degrees. This profile shows an example of

what the students life could look like at around 30 years of age. It even includes a

spouse and children. This part was especially fun for the students, because they were
laughing about how many children they had or if they were single or married. The next

part of the simulation included exercises about credit score and applying loans. At this

point, I did my best to explain that even though we hope we would have enough money

to afford things such as a car or a house, this isnt always the case. We also went over

the importance on maintaining a good credit score, and its impact on future purchases.

Interestingly, the simulation actually either approved or denied students of a loan for a

car or home. I thought this was a good idea because it mirrored real life. Once the

students found if they were approved or not, it came time to pick a car and a home. As

expected, the group of boys I was assigned to work with wanted the newest and fastest

cars. When I asked why, because some of their profiles had children, they didnt choose

a mini-van, they said it was because it was a mom car. Thinking about this

sociologically, it was easy to see the influence of gender stereotyping and

expectations on these boys. Especially at this age (around 12-14), it was obvious that

not appearing feminine or weak was extremely important. In fact, when the students

were being separated by table based on gender, some boys cracked jokes about their

friends moving to the girls table. The boys who were being made fun of were highly

embarrassed, further exhibiting this point. In addition, I noticed the implication of

gender roles into the lives of these students by the way they referred to females.

When asked if they were looking forward to having their own family one day, most

expressed their interest. Then when the instructor reminded them that caring for

children takes a lot of work, a few boys responded by saying Ill have my wife take care

of that. Or Thats why I have a wife. Coming from a highly liberal university and being

a proponent of gender equality, I was definitely surprised. I was under the impression
that younger generations are more likely to be progressive. Of course, the younger age

of these students likely contributes to their beliefs, and these beliefs may change with

age. All in all, we learned in class that the best way to insult a male is to attack his

masculinity; it was interesting that this observation applied to kids as young as these.

We also learned that society tends to value women more than men in general, so this

observation makes sense.

The next portion of the simulation was focusing on budgeting. I had anticipated

that this would be the most difficult part for the students to understand, and I was

correct for the most part. The students had trouble grasping the idea that their monthly

income had to be spent in so many different areas. In other words, they didnt

understand how expensive even basic life needs are. Considering the ages of these

kids, this is not surprisingeven young adults like myself are still figuring out how to be

smart about spending money. When it came time in the simulation to shop the

students behaved as expected and focused on clothes, a nice car and large home. One

can imagine their disappointment when they found out that they needed to spend

money on food, insurance, childcare, and utilities.

Despite having a tendency to prioritize unnecessary items over actual needs,

some of the students impressed me with their knowledge of adult issues. For example,

one student was especially knowledgeable about car insurance. I found this to be

especially interesting because I was nowhere near as informed about such real life

issues when I was that age. Looking sociologically, I can attribute this gap to

differences in upbringing and environment. Specifically, growing up in an upper

middle class area, even if I did inquire about something like insurance, I was told you
dont have to worry about that yet. Obviously, the student mentioned earlier was given

this information because he will have to worry about these issues earlier in life. To me,

this finding reflected a consequence of different socioeconomic status that I was not

aware of before.

Perhaps one of the most evident sociological findings from my time at

Junior Achievement was language. The school that was attending Junior

Achievement (as a field trip) was a dual-language school, and all of the students spoke

Spanish. Of course, I was slightly uncomfortable that people younger than myselfwho

I was also supposed to be helpingcould communicate without me understanding. As

time passed, however, I was more in awe about how easily they could switch between

Spanish and English. The only drawback, however was when the students would speak

to me in English, and then turned and spoke to their friends in Spanish. Again, I am not

exactly used to dealing with a language barrier; the area I grew up in is predominantly

white and English-speaking. In fact, the racial breakdown at my high school included

96% whites. So, evidently, I kind of felt like a fish out of water during this experience.

However, Im glad that I was able to go outside of my comfort zone and experience what

I did.

Another point where cultural differences became apparent was when I

asked about sports. Since it was opening day, I inquired about who watched baseball

and who everyones favorite Tiger was. At this, I was met with blank stares; then, one

student explained that they mostly watch soccer. What should have been obvious to me

(but wasnt) is that not everyone has the same experiences as you. As learned in

class, gender, culture, and other factors influences how people live. And, perhaps
most importantly, language largely affects behavior and experience. Needless to

say, I felt a little silly. For one of the first times in my life, I felt like I was out of touch with

my environment. After I returned from volunteering, I took time to reflect on why I felt

this way. Comparable to visiting a different country, where one may experience

culture shock, I was having trouble adjusting to an unfamiliar environment. Not

only was I surrounded by a foreign language, but I was dealing with other cultural and

socioeconomic differences. When the day started, I had not expected to experience

such differences with the students there; however, I feel that I am better off after leaving.

Towards the end of the day, I started to become aware of the way that this school

disciplines its students. In total, there were three teachers aides that were in charge of

the about 40 students. In addition, there were five volunteers: myself, three people from

my Honors class, and one other man. When one (or more than one) child got off task or

was misbehaving, I simply told them to go sit back down and return to work. In contrast,

one of the teachers aides told the children: You should not mess with me today, if

youre thinking about it, then stop! They also made the students take down their hoods

and spit out their gum, and the boys and girls were separated by table. I understand that

this was all an attempt to keep the children under control, but it seemed a little

excessive to me. In addition, it seemed that the aides were trying to intimidate the

students into listening, a tactic that can only work for so long. Instead of making the

children want to succeed, it seemed as if they were trying to intimidate them into

listening. When I looked around, I saw the students rolling their eyes and slowly moving

back to their seats. Maybe this would happen anyway, but I cant help but think that this

wasnt the best way to discipline the students. Also, separating the students by gender
seemed ineffective, because I observed that this only made each group more likely to

yell to another table. All in all, my experience at this facility (on this particular day) was

very eye opening. I learned a lot about the impact of culture and environment on

children, and how it shapes behavior. I was also able to apply many elements from

my sociology class to better understand these differences.

4/10/17
8:30-1:30

For my second experience at my site, I expected a pretty similar scenario. I had

already gone through the training process, so I was able to show up a little bit later for

the start of the day. This time, I would be volunteering with three individuals who I did

not know beforehand; this caused a little uncertainty on my part. Would these people

put in as much effort as me? Or would I have to do more work?

To start the day, the bus scheduled to bring the children to Junior Achievement

was late. Apparently, there was a miscommunication between the busses and schools,

making the students almost an hour late. This was of course concerning to the

instructor, because she wasnt sure if the students would be able to get through the

simulation in time. At the time, she decided that she would skip the last activity of the

day in order to stay on schedule. The most important part of the simulation was the

budgeting portion, where students would allocate money toward things like groceries

and clothes. In addition, they would have to budget for insurance payments, household

expenses, and even charitable donations. Of course, they would also have to account

for the children and spouse that they were assigned on their profiles. This was

considered to be the most important part because it prepares students for real life

scenarios and responsibilities. The other portions of the simulation are to set the stage
for the budgeting portion; applying for loans and such was a precursor to actually

spending money on them.

One of the most obvious differences between the group of students I had worked

with was race. While the previous group of students was predominantly Hispanic, this

group was completely African American. Whereas I encountered a slight language

barrier before, I would not have this same issue with these students. This being true,

there were still major differences in culture and behavioral dynamics. As

mentioned earlier, I am come from a well-off suburban area, with little exposure to

poverty. In addition, I had not been exposed to sub-par schooling and education.

Similar to the first time I volunteered, the students were separated by gender.

Again, this could have been done in order to help control the students. Perhaps the

hope was that the students would be less distracted, and less likely to interrupt the rest

of the class. Also, contrary to last time, I was assigned to work with a table of girls. This

proved to be a very different experience from my previous one. For example, when the

instructor asked who was excited to go to college, most of the girls rolled their eyes or

looked down. They also reacted in a similar manner when asked who is excited to

move out of their parents home? When I inquired why they felt this way, they said that

they would rather stay at home with their families. And, instead of going to college, they

were going to stay home and maybe work. This was such a stark difference from my

previous experience, where the boys were eager to further their educations and have a

career. In fact, one of the girls asked me if it was ok to live off of the government.

This was an extremely surprising question for me, and I wasnt sure how to answer.

Would I react out of habit and say no? Or would I consider her circumstances and
upbringing? I chose the latter option, and said I would try not to, but theres nothing

wrong with it. Based on my political beliefs, I support government aid programs such

as welfare, so it was not difficult to explain my point of view. Though I do not have

personal experience with welfare, I was able to empathize and be considerate of our

differences in environment. For example, we learned in class that childhood

experience has a large impact on our behaviors as adults. In addition, socializing

with other children greatly influences ones life. Perhaps a mix of both of these

things has led to our differences in perspective. I would have never even thought about

welfare as a normal part of my life. My parents both have jobs, and we live in a nice

area about 40 minutes from Detroit. The only information that I have about welfare has

come from other people, and I am sure that all of these people are not receiving

government aid. Clearly, this young girl had been exposed to welfare either personally

or through those close to her. And for her to be able to speak on it so freely, it is obvious

that this is part of her everyday life.

Though there were many differences between my last group of students and the

ones I worked with this time, both lacked an understanding for college degrees. I had to

explain the differences between an associates, bachelors and masters degrees.

Additionally, I had to reiterate that more years in college equated to more money spent,

and the possibility of student loans. I am unsure of the age at which I became aware of

such information, so I cannot compare our situations. However, when it came time to

calculate percentages (for the taxation part of the simulation) more than half of the

student at my table were struggling. When I began with the question What is 5 percent

as a decimal? I was met with shrugs. At first I thought this was simply a lack of effort, I
then began to consider other possibilities. Specifically, I realized that this girl may

actually not know how to do this calculation. This might have been embarrassing for

some; here I am, asking them to complete a task, and they simply cannot. And, being at

the junior high level, this math skill should have been done easily. It is difficult to tell

whether this discrepancy is a product of the school, or if the students are simply having

trouble learning. One thing that I did notice, though, is that both schools that I worked

with had a large number of students that struggle with basic math skills. I know that

when I was their age, I was on an advanced path for many of my classes, but knew that

certain skills are necessary to move on to subsequent grades. With this school, I felt

that there wasnt a lot of encouragement for students to apply themselves. If a student

didnt feel like completing the simulation, the teacher did nothing about it. Contrary to

last time, there was only one teacher that was in charge of forty students. Surprisingly,

the students seemed to respond to her very well, and she was able to get their attention

quickly. This contrasted sharply from the last teacher I encountered here, who yelled at

the students repeatedly. While that teacher relied on scare tactics, this teacher utilized

mutual respect.

Recently, we learned in class that the social classes of parents effects how

their children are raised. For example, parents in the working class tend to emphasize

structure and order, while middle and upper class parents emphasize personal growth

and freedom. Based on the fact that the students are from an inner city school, and the

field trip is being offered for free, I felt that it was safe to assume that many of these

students have working class parents. In addition, the comments about welfare indicated

this to me. Furthermore, the students seemed to be very educated about real life issues
such as car insurance and debit/credit cards. I am sure that at this age, I had little to no

knowledge in these areas. Instead, I was encouraged to focus on my grades and sports

teams I was involved with.

All in all, I enjoyed this volunteer experience as much as I did the first time. Prior

to this, I had never realized how much I liked working with children; I always thought

that I was more suited to work with people my own age. Also, while it was obvious that

the students and I come from two very different backgrounds, we were still able to get

along and bond. And, using what I have learned from my sociology course, I was

able to analyze the behaviors and beliefs of the students. I found that there are

varying levels of interest in college, and that there is a correlation between this

and gender (with this group in particular). I also found that upbringing has a large

impact on life priorities. I will always remember the interest that some of the students

had about my life. They seemed amazed that I was living on campus and was working

toward a degree. Perhaps this is because they do not visualize themselves following the

same path. I did my best to sell the college experience to the students, but was met

with many blank stares. I even tried to explain that a college degree almost definitely

leads to higher income. This got their attention.

Although there were many students who were completely disinterested in

college, there was one student who definitely wasnt. She explained to me that she

wanted to have her own business one day, and that she wanted to be able to pay her

parents bills. She seemed sure about going to college and earning a degree. She also

said that she couldnt wait to have her own place one day. This point of view was

extremely refreshing, considering the previous events. When I left for the day, she even
wished me good luck with my classes. It was amazing to be able to meet such a young

person with so many goals and aspirations.

8:30-1:30
4/12/17

Same as before, I arrived at the Junior Achievement building ready for another

volunteering experience. This time, however, I began to realize that I was also

participating in observational research. Of course, I am required to volunteer as part of

the honors college, but this assignment also requires that I observe my surroundings

sociologically. So, on this day I decided to be even more cognizant of what was going

on around me; this would prove to be difficult, considering the amount of students that

attended.

Instead of the usual 40 students, this time the facility was hosting closer to 70.

More tables had to be brought out, and fortunately there were four teachers aides to

help out. They were careful to take over the tables we were not able to cover, which

helped out a lot. Even with this help, however, this day ended up being more

challenging than I anticipated. When the students arrived, I was immediately struck by

the increase in volume in the facility. Even after various attempts to get the students to

quiet down, it seemed that there was no way to get the kids to focus. The instructor at

Junior Achievement, being more experienced with these situations that us volunteers

were, had to use a microphone to get the students attention.

The same as the first time I volunteered here, I was assigned to work with a

group of boys. This time, they were slightly older: there were no 6 th graders within the

group. One of the main differences that I noticed (once again) between groups of boys

and girls is the tendency to encourage one anothers behavior. At the start of the day--
during the introduction part of the daythe boys all gave me fake names. It was clear

that this was a plan constructed by the entire table. After I realized that I had been

calling them by the wrong names--they had to enter their full names into the simulation

they all looked at one another and snickered. This wasnt the only instance of peer

influence, though. Throughout the day, there were multiple occurrences of pick-up

lines or off-hand comments about my appearance. I was slightly taken aback by this; at

that age, I was afraid to even talk to someone that much older than me. I always

thought they would see me as annoying. While I doubt any of their remarks had any

weight, it was obvious that they were fueled by their fellow classmates. Just as before,

with the fake name situation, the boys almost instantly looked for their friends approval.

Another thing that Im sure of, though, is that this was an attempt to gain power over the

situation. I believe that by making me uncomfortable, they were trying to overthrow

whatever authority I had. We learned in class that the best way to undermine a

female is to attack her sexuality; this both discredits a woman and makes her

seem less powerful. And, in my opinion, these types of situations highlight the

masculinity of the one making comments. The other boys at the table seemed

impressed with the boy who made the most remarks. Prior to taking this course, I would

have never thought that these common situations could be analyzed sociologically. This

idea is not surprising, though, knowing what I do about the nature of sociology.

As mentioned earlier, this particular group of students were the rowdiest of the

groups I have encountered. There was almost constant yelling between tables, and

getting through the simulation was difficult at many times. At one point, one of the

students asked me why do we even have to do this? This was ironic, because the
purpose of this day was educate the students on why financial literacy is important. We

were instructed to consistently reiterate why learning about loans, taxes, and credit

scores is essential. Additionally, learning how to budget ones money is a skill that is

needed by all.

Perhaps one of the most interesting concepts in this course (to me) is the

impact of upbringing on behavior. This day, I began to realize that many of the ideas

these children have are modeled after their parents. This is of course true of political

and religious beliefs, but in this case I am more interested in opinions about college

education. As part of the daily routine, the instructor asked the group of students if they

had plans to go to college one day. This time around, there were multiple Nos and a

few laughs. There was a similar response when the students were asked if they were

looking forward to moving out and living on their own one day. This could be attributed

to their own parents not going to college, or maybe they are living with their

grandparents. Looking at my own life, I know that I was inspired to go to college by my

parents and family members. Hearing them talk about their college experiences and

seeing how it has helped them achieve their goals had a great influence on me. I think

that these experiences, combined with knowing that it was possible financially, I set my

sights on going to college. It is crazy to think that the elements we cannot control (such

as what we are born into) can dictate ones decisions so much.

Another topic discussed at length during class is gender. We went over the

debate about gender differing from sex. While some believe that both are determined

biologically, others argue that gender is developed by the individual. Another strong

factor in the gender debate is society. Whether it is parents, friends, or even the
media, there is often a push for gender stereotyping. Anyway, this idea came into

play while I was volunteering on this day. While I was looking around the room, I noticed

that there were different groups of students that always stuck together. Mostly, there

were groups of girls and groups of boys. However, I also realized that there was one

student in particular that was on her own most of the time. This student happened to be

wearing clothing that would normally be associated with the opposite gender. It was

clear that this individual was viewed as different and was being excluded from a friend

group. Young people sometimes have a tendency to stay away from what they do not

understand, and this is one of those times. Even in todays world, defying traditional

gender beliefs is not always accepted or encouraged.

Finally, towards the end of the day, I was encouraged by the fact that the

students seemed to be enjoying what they were doing. The final portion of the

simulation is to purchase the items in their budget using fake debit cards. This was the

only part that the students seemed to really focus on; perhaps because it involved

pretending to buy things. What surprised me, though, is that the students knew to swipe

a card and enter a pin. Thinking further, I realized that this was another instance of

children modeling behaviors off of their parents. I know that when I was younger,

there were countless toy sets that included fake cards or money. Even if the students

didnt grasp other part of the simulation, I suppose practicing this counts as learning real

life skills.

Throughout my volunteering experience, I learned a lot about how to analyze life

from a sociologists perspective. This type of analysis requires one to look deeper

than the surface, and question why people behave the way that they do. These
reasons may not be what we want to hear, but challenging beliefs is the heart of

science. Thinking in this way over the semester will definitely change how I view society

in general; I will now be able to recognize why society is the way it is. Or, I can try at

least.

In addition to having a better idea of the realm of sociology, I have also learned

about the value of volunteering. The organization that I volunteered with claimed that

they were always looking for more people, and that they were oftentimes short staffed.

This was sad to me, and made me realize what it means to be a good citizen. If one has

the means to help out in the community, then one should. People that complain about

social issues (such as poor education or poverty), but often do nothing to solve the

problem directly. If one is looking for social change to occur, then people must do their

part. Personally, I never understood the passion that some individuals have for

volunteering. But now, seeing the impact that I can have on a group of young people

has shown me why. Also, hearing the plans that these kids have for their futures

inspired me further. If I can do my part in preparing them to succeed, then I have no

problem volunteering my time. After all, these students are the future of society, so they

should be given every chance to follow their dreams. Just as I had, I hope to have given

these students the tools and inspiration they need to do what they are passionate about.