Each Wednesday, ProfHacker hosts an open thread discussion. Sometimes a specific topic is announced, and sometimes the discussion is completely open. Please remember to abide by our commenting and community guidelines. Thanks!
Today’s topic comes from commenter @jrothastro, who asks about getting more involved in the community, either as a volunteer or for pay:
Teaching community-education courses, adult-ed courses, teaching in prisons, working outside the academia box? Pluses and minuses, war stories, tips, all might be stimulating and inspirational.
Do you have any experience with this kind of work? Let’s hear from you in the comments!
[Creative Commons-licensed flickr photo by Dustin Jensen]
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2 Responses to Open Thread Wednesday: Engaging the Community?
ychumanities - February 2, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Well, a project for my fall mythology class was to create a float to be entered in the Holiday Lights parade held by the local downtown business alliance. I teach at a community college, and I take the “community” part of that very seriously, so I try to engage my students in local projects whenever possible, to demonstrate that academic education doesn’t belong to only a few, nor is it only useful or relevant in a classroom. These projects are also effective marketing for the college, making the surrounding community aware of the value of having a college in their midst. That’s valuable for an institution that depend on local taxes for most of our funding.
jpegan - February 2, 2011 at 4:39 pm
i was an adult educator activist for a decade before I began teaching adult vocational education courses. Much of the activism was around queer rights issues, but also addiction and mental health self-advocacy. But I went to do an M Ed in adult education because of the vocational gig: getting a masters would increase my hourly rate.
Except I was introduced to the Freirian tradition and found i’d been an adult educator my whole adult life.I returned to university with my dusted-off cynicism about the academy; I was surprised to find myself in a realm that celebrated that which I’d previously found scorned. And I grabbed that ball and ran with it. The economic, social and cultural capital of that university affiliation helped attract funds, identify collaborators, and build international networks of other “border dwellers.”
Nuts and bolts stuff: counter-homophobia education for queers. Public education about anti-queer violence. Helping organizations refine their volunteer training and management processes. Delivering skills building workshops to AIDS activists in Africa. Giving persons on welfare the tools to self-advocate using the internet (what’s the REAL policy) and word processing (submitting a written request for support is often much more successful than a verbal one with bureaucracies), helping build a network of small NGOs in suburban Sydney Australia.
Most recently i’ve focussed on building community-based research capacity for an Aboriginal HIV/AIDS organization in Canada. Wholly voluntary–won’t take money for it, in fact.