Assignment 1:

Community Involvement

Pacific Oaks College

Miranda Valdescona
HD381
May 22, 2017
 I have been and continue to be civically engaged in my community through the

education system, volunteer organizations and social movements through art. As a former

early childhood educator, I found it essential to incorporate social justice into the daily

curriculum and the dynamics of the classroom. I would make sure that the weekly

subjects of the curriculum, the books that needed to be read and all the others factors that

made up the curriculum would be socially aware and prevent any suggestive notions of

institutional oppression. One example of a time that I always make sure to be on high

alert with the curriculum is during Black History month. During this month, the school

celebrates the African American culture and the curriculum is therefor centered on

African Americans. However, I have consistently noticed that the subject in which books,

coloring sheets, songs and even puzzles focus on with African Americans is how

different they are because of the color of their skin. Although some songs and literature

acknowledge their authentic culture and background, most topics and pictures simply

portray and suggest the idea of being different because of the skin color. It did not take

me a while to realize that this was clearly a misinterpretation of the culture and to say the

least unconsciously oppressive, implementing ideas of inferiority and powerlessness to

young children. As a solution, I would first brought it up to administration and when they

took a while to re-direct the curriculum, I brought it upon myself to connect with my

assistant teacher and come up with different ways to eliminate certain words, phrases and

even complete activities that promoted any suggestive racial oppression. When Martin

Luther King Jr. was talked about, I would make sure to teach about him in a manner that

was humanitarian as opposed to racial activist, something as simple as saying, Martin

Luther King Jr. wanted to change the way people treated each other, he wanted us all to
be friends and be kind to each other can create a completely different understanding for

the child than being taught, Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to change the way white

people treated the African Americans, people treated African Americans in a bad way

because of the color of their skin. Although I do agree that children should eventually be

taught and made aware of slavery and the injustices it brought, but it also should be

taught over a strong non-biased foundation and understanding that we are all equal

people.

Another way that I am civically engaged in my community is through my

volunteer with the Youth Policy Institute. I found out about YPI through a friend of mine

who is also in the field of social work, YPI is a non-profit organization in Los Angeles

that caters to breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. The organization aims to

provide three key factors in preventing and reducing poverty among neighborhoods and

marginalized communities in Los Angeles: Access, Empowerment and Hope. Access for

families and students, YPI provides access to a range of wraparound support services

and educational choices, including computer technology labs and training for the skills

needed to excel in school and the workplace(www.ypiusa.org). Empowerment among

the students that range from pre-school to college, YPI offers high quality education for

low-income families to succeed. Finally but most importantly, Hope, where the

organization prepares Los Angeles residents for high wage jobs in growing fields, and

offer job training and placement in addition to a day laborer center. As a volunteer I have

been placed as a mentor for young children ages 4-6 years. Since I have extensive

knowledge and previous experience working with early childhood, I thought that this was

the best place for me to finally make a difference in a childs future. I volunteer in the
morning for 4 hours on Thursdays and Saturdays in one of the kindergarten and 1st grade

groups, I mentor the children in these age groups through literature, by reading to them

and helping them create their own stories about their experiences, feelings, fears and

dreams. I just started volunteering for this organization, this month marks my 4th month

volunteering for them and although I feel like the children and the experience has done so

much for me already, I am overwhelmed at how much more I want to do for them.

Finally, the last but certainly not the least (creative) way that I am civically

engaged I my community is through a more underground and subtle way, my

involvement and continued support in the local art community in the east and central Los

Angeles area. I have always had a passion and desire for art, my mother is an artist and

all of my close friends are artists. Growing up in Los Angeles, I have seen how much

these underprivileged, ethnic and low-income artists have struggled to connect and find

their voice among society. Even more so lately through the political and social changes

that the nation has been going through, the local artists in the community are thirsting for

someone to finally acknowledge them, recognize their struggle through their art and

finally provide them the support that they desperately need. I try to do my part in

supporting them by buying their pieces instead of the generic brands in the stores, I stay

involved among them by helping them find places and venues to showcase their art

pieces and promote and invite people to come and join us in the cultivation of culture and

art.

The three ways in which I am involved makes me happy and hopeful but not

satisfied. I think that I am only in the beginning of my civic and social involvement and

will only strive for bigger ways of getting involved. For now, I am simply taking what I
have knowledge in, which is childhood education and art, and starting off with that.

These are mainly the factors that I considered upon being engaged in the certain aspects

of education and art in my community. As I continue to learn and grow in the field of

social justice so will the factors, depth and mass of my involvement become.