College Academy Teacher: Joey Deschenes (PCF ‘09) Peace Corps Service: Albania 2006-2008 Now teaching in: Washington Heights, New York Subject: High School English
Teacher Reflection by Joseph Deschenes
Initially, my service-learning project was going to consist of a school assembly where my students could perform their spoken word poetry. Many of the students were excited at the chance to share their poetry from a stage. However, the audience turnout was not good as many of the teachers did not want to take time away from their teaching to watch other students perform. While this was a little disheartening, many of the students still gave the performance their all. This could have easily been the end of the service-learning project, but luckily a couple of other students were willing to take it a step further. I had toyed with the idea of possibly having a few students make an audio recording of their spoken word, but had no idea how to make that happen. Luckily, the Service-Learning Coordinator at the Peace Corps Fellows Program was willing to push me to pursue this ambitious project. The result was that a handful of my students were given the opportunity to participate in a recording session at Dubway Studios in Lower Manhattan. The students who signed up for the studio were very patient and dedicated to the project. Once my students completed the recording, they shared their music with their communities through social media outlets. It was their chance to inform their communities of the hardships they experience on a day-to-day basis while proving that expression through spoken word is a better alternative to giving in to negative influences.
For their service-learning project, Sophomores at College Academy critically discussed the daily hardships they face in their communities, engaging topics such as hate crimes, gang violence, and the juvenile justice system. As part of a larger poetry unit, the students wrote spoken word poems that they later recorded and shared in their communities through various social media outlets with the hope of increasing awareness of the issues and spreading a positive message.
10
When we first began our poetry unit, I noticed that not only did my students have a lot to say about the hardships they endured in their communities, but they also had a lot of talent. Overall, I was not prepared for how honest and real my students would be when we started this project. As an English teacher, you often hope for your students to share something genuine through their writing and hope that they discover writing’s potential as a positive outlet. When it actually happens, the writing you often receive is overwhelming. Sometimes you find the writing is so powerful that a common classroom bulletin board would not do justice.