Sinclair360

But for Small, a first-year student from Greenville, the experience transcended that of an average class obligation. It helped open her eyes to the needs of those around her, even when she thought she already understood the challenges of the working poor. “ It was a hard-hitting type thing,” Small said. “There are people who are worse off than I am, and there are things that I can do to help them get to where I am.”

The project was a service-learning assignment. Through service learning, students spend time working at a local nonprofit agency, to help meet a need that directly connects to a learning objective of their class.

In Small’s class, that learning objective was critical thinking, reading and writing skills. The students spent time researching and reading about the working poor; then they helped organize donations at Compassion 1st, a Dayton nonprofit agency, to help them see firsthand the economic needs of citizens in the Dayton area. Afterward they wrote reflective papers about their experience.

Service learning is used across various departments and programs at Sinclair. When used in developmental classes taken by first-year students, it can often help them choose a major, said Marilyn Rodney, Sinclair’s service learning coordinator.

Those two hours at Compassion 1st did help Small clarify her future plans. The 23–year–old knew that she wanted to study psychology and now thinks that she’ ll focus on working with teenagers, after remembering – while sorting through those infant outfits – all of those teenage mothers with whom she attended high school.

“All of those girls getting pregnant at a young age…they have no sense of how to care for the child or how to make money to care for the child… it was a big eye–opener for me,” she said.

Small said that service learning fits her hands-on learning style. She already considers herself a passionate person, but taking time out of her daily routine to work at Compassion 1st enriched that part of her personality. “That pushed me a little more to want to help people of my generation,” she said.

By Tracy Staley

Tracy Staley is a Dayton-based writer whose work has appeared in the Dayton Business Journal, the Nashville Business Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader, among others.