Editor's Note: Rachel Mountz just completed her freshman year at Penn State University Park, studying elementary education. This summer, she is one of roughly four dozen Penn State students taking Curriculum and Instruction 295 A, Philadelphia Urban Seminar, with Dan Thompson, assistant professor of education in the College of Education. Thompson's students have joined hundreds of students from universities throughout Pennsylvania at LaSalle University in north Philadelphia for a two-week, intensive experience observing and teaching in urban schools. Mountz is chronicling her experiences for Penn State Live and the Newswires.
Days Six and Seven: The weekend
I am not a morning person, and on Friday I was glad to hear that we didn't have to be out at the vans until 8:45 Saturday morning to go to our service projects. I got up at 7 though to go for a little run around the track. Urban Seminar Tip #13: If there are things you like to do like run or play sports, you can do all that here. My roommate and I go running around the track, and we saw a bunch of people the other day playing whiffle ball.
The seminar students were split by university into two groups for the community service day. One group went to do a project at Norris Square, and my group went to the Germantown Beacon Center. We sat in the Germantown High School auditorium for a short introduction and then split into groups and got right to work. Some groups did a community clean up, some groups planted flowers, and my group was an anti-graffiti group. We walked to a park about five blocks away and painted over graffiti. It was a big park, but we got a basketball court, benches, bleacher-like steps, and some playground equipment painted. Urban Seminar Tips #14 & 15: Keep a positive attitude. The people who live near the park came to tell us how grateful they were that we were painting for them, so just remember that this is for other people and any amount of work you can do is helping them out. Also, wear old clothes.
We had a lunch/carnival for the kids after a morning of working. Once we ate we did activities including face-painting and playing games with a lot of the local kids. I played a pretty intense game of soccer with a couple of younger kids. After the carnival all the seminar students went back into the auditorium and watched a documentary on violence in the city. It was a video put together with the intent of educating the city's youth on the effects of gun violence. We were the first audience to view the film so we got to give the director our feedback on it. I thought it was a good film.
Germantown High School is a beacon school -- it is not only a school it is a community center too. They put a lot of focus on keeping students off the streets by giving them alternative options such as spending time on writing songs and producing videos. In the morning before we started our community service projects we got to see one of the videos that some students had put together, and in the afternoon they treated us to a live performance. All I could think of was how much talent those students had and how cool it was that they were so into writing these songs and performing them for people.
Sunday was a "free day" where everyone got to pick a trip to go on. Some people went to the Phillies game, some went to South Street and others to the King of Prussia Plaza to shop. There also was an option to go to Penn's Landing and some other Philadelphia landmarks. It was just a day to relax and do whatever we wanted.
For the full series, visit http://live.psu.edu/story/30949 online. For photos, visit http://live.psu.edu/stilllife/1707 online.