Psy 498 Journal Entry Assignments
Fall 2007
Prof. Conway
Journal Assignment #10: Mosle (The Vanity of Volunteerism) & Snyder, Omoto, & Lindsay (2004) – Due Tues., Nov. 27
Read these two sources:
Mosle (2000)
Snyder, Omoto, and Lindsay (2004) pp. 454-459; 462-464
Answer the following questions in about 1 to 1.5 pages (you can give short answers for each):
1. The question posed at the beginning of the Mosle piece (“The Vanity of Volunteerism”) is whether Sara Mosle’s six years of mentoring has made a difference. What is her answer to this question? What does she say is needed for volunteerism to make a real difference?
2. What do Snyder et al. (2004; “Sacrificing time and effort…”) have to say about whether volunteers make a difference? Are Snyder et al.’s conclusions consistent with those of Mosle, or inconsistent? Explain.
4. What do Snyder et al. have to say about how to increase volunteer commitment?
5. What impact do you see your service agency having on the beneficiaries of your service?
Journal Entry #9 (Due Tuesday, Nov. 20): Challenges and Strengths
1. Speak to your site supervisor (or to one or more of the people to whom you provide service, if you want to do it that way) about the questions below. Feel free to phrase the questions any way you like, as long as you keep their gist.
a. Can you name one or two of the biggest challenges faced by [your service population; e.g., disabled adults; kids at the YMCA]? [Note: these challenges could be personal issues, family issues, or issues involving “social structures” such as laws, government funding, etc.]
b. What do you think needs to be done to help [your service population] deal with these challenges?
c. What strengths do [those in your service population] have to draw from? [Note: strengths could be characteristics of the individuals, something about their families or community, etc.]
2. Write one to two pages summarizing your supervisors’ answers as well as your thoughts on his/her answers.
Journal Entry #8 (Due Tuesday, Nov. 6): Individual and Community
Read these three brief sources:
de Tocqueville, A. (1863). Of individualism in democratic countries. In Democracy in America, Vol. II. Available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ch2_02.htm.
Neusner, J. (1988). Righteousness, not charity: Judaism’s view of philanthropy. Liberal Education, 74(4), 16-18.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: Living alone and liking it. Presentation to the Commonwealth Club of California.
Note: de Tocqueville visited the United States in the late 1800’s to study the
relatively new experiment in democracy. He commented extensively on US culture
and habits, and the very-short we’re reading deals with his observations on
individualism.
Write about one page answering these questions:
1. What do you think the individual’s responsibility is to the community? Why?
2. Does reflecting on the readings lead you to think differently about community service? E.g., why it is important, or what constitutes community service (you might re-think your definition from journal entry #1), or any other thoughts you have? Tell me which source(s) affected your thinking and why.
You don’t have to write about these questions but please consider them in preparation for class discussion:
de Tocqueville (1863) – Did he see individualism as a good thing? Is democracy good or bad for service? Do you think Americans generally feel, as de Tocqueville claimed, that they “owe nothing to any man,…expect nothing from any man”?
Neusner (1988) did not use Morton’s (1995) paradigms to refer to righteousness. Think about what Neusner was advocating and which of Morton’s paradigms are represented.
Putnam (2000) discussed a decline in civic engagement. What did he say about the consequences of this decline (i.e., what are the negative effects on our society)?
Journal Entry #7 (Due Tuesday, Oct. 30): Perspective-Taking
Imagine a day in the life of one of the people to whom you provide community service (make it a day in which you visit for service, so you’re part of the day). Think about the day as if you were that person, looking at the world through his or her eyes.
Write approximately one page about the person’s day, including your visit for community service.
Add one brief paragraph describing whether this exercise has given you any new insights into the people you work with.
Assignment #6 (not really a journal assignment) - Galinsky & Moskowitz (2000) - Due Tuesday Oct. 23
Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) Stereotypes Jigsaw Assignment – Due Tuesday Oct. 23
Your assignment has several parts. You need to (1) list the characteristics you associate with older adults; (2) read the piece of the Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) article assigned to you and answer the questions on the attached sheet in preparation for explaining your piece to other members of your group, and (3) actually explaining it to a small group during class.
* If you did not get assigned a piece in class, please contact me ASAP at conwayj@ccsu.edu to get an assignment*
1. List Characteristics
Consider our culture’s stereotype of an “older adult.” That is, think about what characteristics young people tend to believe older adults have. Whether you personally hold such a stereotype or not, please list these stereotypic characteristics on the attached sheet.
2. Read Your Piece of Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000), Answer Questions
Your piece is short and won’t take long to read. The key is to look for the relevant information to answer the questions on the attached sheet.
You should be prepared to talk to a small group for 3-4 minutes, allowing for time for note-taking. This means you need to:
1. Extract just the key information, and
2. Put things into your own words – don’t copy text directly from the article.
3. Explain Your Piece
Next class you will form a group with people who have read other parts, and you will explain your piece to them.
Other class members have other parts of the article, and each one should make sense once they’re all put together.
Please don’t read directly from your sheet when explaining – treat this like a short presentation for which you have some notes, but don’t read word-for-word.
And please don’t copy things down word-for-word when others in your group are explaining their pieces – treat this like a class lecture in which your goal is to take notes on the key ideas but not every single word.
You will turn in your sheet at the end of class.
Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) Stereotypes Jigsaw Assignment Questions
List Characteristics of Older Adults:
I. Introduction
1. What has research shown about intentional suppression of stereotypic thoughts?
2. What is perspective-taking?
3. What is the main point of the section ‘Perspective-Taking and Stereotyping’?
II. Experiment 1 Purpose / Methods
4. Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) said that…
“Perspective taking leads to accessibility of the ____________________________ (Davis et al., 1996), whereas suppression leads to accessibility of the _____________________________________ (McCrae et al., 1994).”
5. Describe the major aspects of the methods/procedure in a few sentences.
III. Results
6. What dependent variables did Galinsky and Moskowitz look at? I.e., what measures of stereotypes did they use? (clue – there were two of them; describe them in one sentence each)
7. What were the findings for each measure of stereotypes?
Journal Entry #5 (Due at your group meeting, either Thursday, Oct. 11 or Tuesday Oct. 16): Early Experiences
You have now begun your community service. Write about 1½ to 2 pages:
1. Describe the experience. Include descriptions of the people you are serving, staff, the environment (physical and social), and your work tasks. Be as descriptive as you can (e.g., include adjectives to describe the people, the environment, and your tasks);
2. Discuss anything interesting, unexpected, etc. that you have noticed.
3. Comment on this quote from Coles (1993): “you can learn a lot when you do this kind of work, and I guess everyone would agree on that – learn sociology and psychology and economics and politics. But you can also learn about yourself, your own psychology and politics and values…” (p. 66). What have you learned so far in the course of doing your service?
Conway’s Example
Jefferson School is a nice and well run place. The teachers and other staff are friendly to me (sometimes I hear them yelling at the kids, but I guess that’s part of the deal). I’ll get to talking about Saleh in a minute, but first I want to mention the other kids. They seem very interested in me coming to spend time with Saleh, and gotten to know who I am – when I show up at the classroom usually one of them will poke Saleh to let him know I’m there.
Now, about Saleh – he is a really nice boy with good manners and it’s fun to meet with him. When we first began he was in second grade and spoke almost no English. We did very basic things like going over the letters of our alphabet and named some pictures. He got right down to business and was eager to do it (I was actually surprised at how easy it was). The school principal had told me that they weren’t sure if he had been to school in his native country – Yemen. That really surprised me – why didn’t they know? I didn’t follow up on it right then, though, but it raised an important question in my mind.
Another thing I found surprising was Saleh’s rate of progress. He began making rapid progress, learning the letters, etc., and I felt really good about it. After a while, though, it slowed down considerably and I almost felt like he was “stuck” where he was. We could communicate pretty well but he was still far from fluent in English, and things stayed that way for a long time. I could tell from his homework and from talking to his teachers that he was really progressing in math, and that he actually won an award for reading! But he was lagging conversationally.
The quote from Coles (1993) resonates with me for a couple of reasons. I’ve been learning some important things about myself and about immigrants, as a result of working with Saleh. One thing I’ve considered is my own motives for doing service. I began this work because I think education is really important and that all kids should have a shot at a good education – so I guess that’s the Values motive. But I’ve found that I continue it because I just like hanging around with Saleh and he seems to like me. That’s the Social motive, and I believe a lot of times this is what really gets people hooked on doing service.
Another thing I’ve been learning about is immigrants and the barriers they face when they move to a country in which they don’t speak the native language. Obviously it’s a challenge to learn the language, but I didn’t realize how challenging it is. Saleh’s slow progress (he’s a smart kid) has clued me in to that and I now have a better appreciation for what it’s like. I’ve learned some things from speaking to the school’s ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teacher – she said the general rule is that it takes 7 years for a non-English speaker to reach grade level! Another thing I’ve noticed is that Saleh’s friends are all Arabic-speaking, so outside of class he probably doesn’t spend much time speaking English. This has GOT to inhibit his learning.
To sum it up, the quote from Coles hit it on the nose because I’ve learned some things about myself (my motives, and how my previous beliefs about immigrants were naïve), and about other people (about the challenges facing non-English speaking immigrants).
Journal Entry #4 (Due Thursday, Oct. 4)
Read these two sources (available in CentralPipeline):
Bringle, R. G., & Hatcher, J. A. (1999). Reflection in service learning: Making meaning of experience. Educational Horizons, 77(4), 179-185.
Coles, R. (1993). The call of service: A witness to idealism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. [Excerpts; be sure to get the ‘Reflection’ piece from Coles and not the ‘Introduction’]
Read Bringle and Hatcher first, followed by Coles (1993) (the Coles piece should be the one labeled ‘Reflection. Answer these questions briefly, in about one half a page total:
1. What do the two readings have in common? That is, what is their common focus?
2. What do the two readings tell us about how we should approach community service?
Journal Entry #3 (Due Tuesday, Sept. 24)
As you prepare to begin your service, write about your expectations. Consider the following aspects of your service:
1. those you will serve;
2. the staff;
3. the physical and social environment
If you like, you can start by listing adjectives that describe each. Then write a narrative (about one page) describing your expectations. Regarding staff and those you will serve, you might consider what you expect to have in common with them, their personalities/abilities, demographics (e.g., gender, race, etc.), or anything else. An example that I wrote last year:
Conway's Expectations of Working With Saleh
Adjectives about 2nd-grader from Yemen:
shy/timid
quick to learn English
Adjectives about School Staff:
caring
Adjectives about Environment
active
loud
bad behavior
intimidating? friendly?
I am trying to remember my expectations before I began working with Saleh, which is challenging given that we’ve now been meeting for a year and a half – but I’ll give it a shot.
I arranged with the principal of Jefferson Middle School to be a “reading buddy” for a child who needed extra help, and to visit weekly. I felt some hesitancy about starting this because it was an unfamiliar situation and I wasn’t sure how the child would respond to me. He or she might be uninterested or even resentful; on the other hand, s/he might think it was fun to work on reading with somebody new. Before I began I was told I was matched with a second grader named Saleh who had come to New Britain from Yemen about a month earlier, and knew no English when he arrived.
I expected Saleh to be timid, maybe even overwhelmed by being in a completely new environment in which very few people spoke his language. Also, knowing that Jefferson Elementary serves a relatively low-income population, I expected his academic skills to be relatively poor and that his reading would progress with some difficulty. On the other hand, I thought he would pick up spoken English fairly quickly as I assumed was common for children in a new country.
I suppose my expectation about the school staff (mostly the teachers) was that they would be caring with the students, though I wasn’t sure how people would respond to me. (Probably just some insecurity about being perceived as an outsider in a new situation.)
As for the physical and social environment, I had been in the building before so I knew it was a fairly new building and in good shape. I had not spent much time away from the office near classrooms though, so I wasn’t sure what it would be like to be “around the school.” I suspected that it would be noisy and active. I expected to see more “rowdy behavior” than in schools in higher-income towns (where I had spent more time). I wasn’t entirely sure children would listen to teachers in the hallways, be respectful, and generally do what they were supposed to do. I don’t believe I was actually aware of these expectations, but in thinking back and reflecting on them, I think they were there just underneath my conscious awareness.
Journal Entry #2 (done in class)
How do
you define ‘community service’?
Journal Entry #1 (Due Tuesday, Sept. 11)
Read the Miller (1969) article (if you get the article through CentralPipeline, it is broken into two pdf files); you can skip the parts I have X’ed out:
Miller, G. A. (1969). Psychology as a means of promoting human welfare. American Psychologist, 24(12), 1063-1075.
Answer the following questions (1 to 1.5 pages total):
1. Miller argued that psychology is “potentially one of the most revolutionary intellectual enterprises ever conceived by the mind of man (p. 1065.” How did he claim this could happen? (E.g., was it through development of new technologies for behavior control?) Do you agree with his argument? Why or why not?
2. What does Miller claim should be the major goal of psychology?
3. How could Miller’s ideas be applied to community service?