Weekly Objectives Oct23rd-Nov2nd
- Visit West Point Grey Legion on Oct 26th.
- Conduct Interviews with manager and member of the Legion
- Draw knowledge, skills and experiences graph
- Finish Blog Posting #3
Achievement
- 2nd visit to the Legion on Oct 26th
- Interviewed Vice President
- Interviewed a volunteer
- Finished knowledge, skills and experiences graph
MOMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE CHANGE
In the class tutorial, we had a chance to reflect on the past experience we had working with the community. The reflection of the experience was depicted through a graph with our experience of life and class throughout the visits up till now.
Experience Graph
Before visiting the legion, all of us in the group were still a bit confused about the project itself and how the visit would turn out to be. As a result, our emotion fell a little before our first visit to the legion. Uncertainty is inevitable in our further career; however, it could propel people to find better resolution (Shulman, 2005, p. 18). After the first visit to the legion, our emotion reached its first peak because of the abundance of information about understanding the environment that we received and what expectation we are going to achieve (Hornby, T., & Bleed, R. 2006). With the information, we were able to further understand the community that we would be working with better since local group nearby usually does community services. As time passes, the knowledge we received from the first visit to the legion can’t seem to answer to further question we came up with. Therefore, our emotion gradually decreased because further questions, blogs, outlines, and reports that’s due for LFS class. The midterm seasons is what brought the emotion to its lowest point. Post midterm seasons, our group’s emotion gradually increased and the team’s emotion finally reached its second peak after the second visit to the Legion. Till this day, we are working in a group in hope to learn more about the legion with reasonable resolutions that may benefit the West Point Grey Legion.
Through the experience, we found that working with the community and balancing time managing with each of our member’s personal lives could be tough. However, with the positive feedbacks and experience we learned each time after visiting the legion and having class lessons, our group looks forward in learning more about the community in near future.
STRATEGIES FOR GRACEFUL DISMOUNT
To successfully achieve as a group, it requires hard work of people collaborating and putting knowledge with effort together. This graceful dismount requires us to self-reflect on the paths we’ve currently experienced so we can reflect and further improve in future visits.
“Listening” is also a key point to success in our community project as discussed in Ernesto Sirolli’s TED talk video (2012). While we were struggling about not having a kitchen in our Legion, the first thing we thought of is how to make up rather than listen to the Legion’s will. Through our second visit to the Legion and interviewed Vice President of the Legion, we tried to listen to what the Legion wants and able to formulate our next steps. Being able to understand the community West Point Grey more, our group believes that the idea of community kitchen doesn’t only pertain to whether if the Legion itself does or does not physically have a kitchen, but whether if the Legion’s food system itself ties to the community’s food systems.
We’ve learned through visits to West Point Grey legion about how the Legion prefers to have a kitchen but doesn’t currently have one. From this starting point, if West Point Grey’s current renovation plan includes implementing a new kitchen within the Legion, then the Legion would be able to provide a better food system with bursary from chain store supermarkets. If not, some upcoming strategies such as helping the Legion connect with close by kitchens within restaurants for regular or even contracted meal plan collaborations could be a possible solution toward a better food system for the Legion.
Reference
Hornby, T., & Bleed, R. (2006, May). WORK AND LIFE: ACHIEVING A REASONABLE BALANCE. Retrieved November 6, 2016, from http://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications/books/cultivating-careers-professional-development-campus-it
Shulman, L. S. (2005). Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education, 91(2), 18–25. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ697350.pdf
Sirolli, E. (2012, November 26). Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM