Community Based Learning Experience Paper

From my community-based learning placement at Estrella Family Services, I found it difficult to find meaningful stories of resilience from the children and the teachers. I do not believe in making speculations on the background of the students and teachers. What I will do instead is document my perceptions of the Greater Washington Community instead and how it has changed. When I first came to the Greater Washington Community, I felt shocked at what I had seen. Such a poor and harsh community only a 10 minute drive from Santa Clara University. It seemed like a sharp contrast from Santa Clara’s safe and happy environment. Three things stood out in my mind from my first visit to the Greater Washington Community. The first problem is the gang violence. The second is prostitution. To
One thing that stood out in our discussion is that the preschool program offered by Estrella Family Services needs more teachers. It was later on that I realized why I could not explicitly find stories of struggle from the people in my placement. As previously mentioned, I wrote on how difficult it was to find time to exchange meaningful conversations with the teachers. The reason is that there are not enough teachers. If there are more teachers, I’m sure there would be more time for me to engage in conversations with the teachers. That way, I will be able to get to know them even better and better identify the problems that the community is facing. From this discussion, I began to question the funding supporting Estrella Family Services. “Could it be that Estrella is low on funding?”, I asked myself. There is a possibility considering the teacher to student ratio. This is something that is worth investigating. If Estrella is indeed lacking financial support, then it is up to the students and faculty members of SCU to figure out a way to