{"id":678,"date":"2018-06-08T15:51:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T15:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentvoices.bli.lsa.umich.edu\/?p=678"},"modified":"2020-07-23T13:36:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T13:36:13","slug":"education-and-community-service-in-louisville-ky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/2018\/06\/08\/education-and-community-service-in-louisville-ky\/","title":{"rendered":"Education and Community Service in Louisville, KY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over spring break in 2018, a group of students from the U-M Muslim Students\u2019 Association went on an Alternative Spring Break trip to Louisville, Kentucky. We explored the topic of Youth and Education by partnering with an amazing\u00a0organization called Junior Achievement, which is dedicated to giving young people the skills they need to make smart economic choices. As I reflect on\u00a0this trip, I\u2019d like to first thank the BLI, which has been dear to my heart since I started at U-M,\u00a0for granting us with the Small Grant that helped with our trip expenses. We wouldn\u2019t have had\u00a0the rewarding and reflective experience that we did without their generous contribution.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Every weekday, we woke up bright and early (6 am!) and went to an elementary school in Louisville to teach a lesson about financial literacy to students ranging from kindergarten to 4th\u00a0grade. Every day, we visited a different school and taught lessons such as explaining the\u00a0difference between needs and wants and assembling \u201cSweet-o-Donuts\u201d to illustrate the importance\u00a0of means of production. And every night before, our group members worked to learn<\/em> the lesson plans\u00a0that JA provided to us. We expected challenges<\/em> in our classrooms and handled them with a\u00a0determination to provide a good lesson for our students. We always asked<\/em> our JA\u00a0supervisor and our classroom teachers when we needed help.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We also explored the wonderful city of Louisville.\u00a0We visited\u00a0<\/span>Muhammad Ali\u2019s final resting place and were able to reflect on his life, legacy, and the role model he is for our own aspirations.<\/span>We also toured the University of Louisville campus (Go\u00a0Blue forever though), had ice cream with members of U of L\u2019s Muslim Students\u2019 Association,\u00a0tried chess pie, and had dinner with the U-M Alumni Association of Louisville\u00a0(again, Go Blue forever). And because we couldn\u2019t get enough of the benefits of community service, our group also spent an evening volunteering at a mosque that served a large refugee\u00a0population.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through this trip, I gained 12 lifelong friends \u2013 my forever ASB family. The bonds that we made\u00a0through our shared experiences volunteering are some I hope will last for a long time. Our trip\u00a0was muddled with multiple, marvelous misadventures, including but not limited to: ice cream\u00a0runs, basketball games, urgent care visits, getting lost in the woods, getting lost in the city,\u00a0walking on the wrong bridge, broken pinkies, laughing about our embarrassing moments,\u00a0creating every possible ASB-related pun in existence, driving in our favorite minivan\u2014the list\u00a0goes on. This trip would not have been what it was without every single one of our ASBunch.<\/p>\n

Amidst all the fun, our group members also paused and reflected<\/em> on our daily experiences every\u00a0night. Community\u00a0service isn\u2019t just work that positively impacts the community\u2014it is work for a purpose higher\u00a0than yourself that does not only enrich the community you\u2019re assisting but also provides a\u00a0teaching opportunity. Our own Islamic faith encapsulates this idea. This opportunity also helped me truly grasp the impact\u00a0of disparities due to residential\u00a0segregation on students\u2019 educational\u00a0attainment. Items as seemingly mundane as\u00a0eyeglasses or hearing aids could make a significant impact on a child\u2019s learning ability. A\u00a0positive attitude and encouragement to a child learning a concept they\u2019re unfamiliar with speaks\u00a0volumes. One of the schools had a large amount of ESL students, where language barriers hindered their ability to interact with their fellow students\u2014yet these barriers can be\u00a0lifted with the right kind of attention. In an area that is so nuanced but also so integral\u00a0to our society, a policymaker has to be aware of all of these intersecting factors that affect education.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our students ended up\u00a0teaching us so much about ourselves. They all seemed to possess an innocent, almost na\u00efve desire to learn. Their pure eagerness struck me, because it made me wonder how we\u00a0lose that as adults. It seems that we get so caught up in working towards an end goal\u2014whether a better\u00a0grade, job, income, education, or future\u2014that we lose sight of the knowledge and memories we\u00a0gain along the way. What changes throughout our lives that diminishes that spark?<\/p>\n

This is a question I asked as I reflected on myself as a leader and as a member\u00a0of my community. Ultimately, this trip became such a life-changing and phenomenal\u00a0avenue for personal growth. I recognized the value of prioritizing the goals that truly mattered to\u00a0me, the importance of seizing every opportunity that came my way, and the ability to tangibly\u00a0instill change with a smile on my face. As I returned to campus, that excitement never left. For the first time in a long time,\u00a0I let all my stressors, academic deadlines, and extracurricular involvements go for a week, and by\u00a0doing that, I was truly able to enjoy the work I did.<\/p>\n

That week was easily one of the most rewarding and beneficial weeks of my life, and my hope is\u00a0that all students at the University of Michigan get the opportunity to go on at least one ASB trip\u00a0during their time here.<\/p>\n

By Zoha Qureshi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over spring break in 2018, a group of students from the U-M Muslim Students\u2019 Association went on an Alternative Spring Break trip to Louisville, Kentucky. We explored the topic of Youth and Education by partnering with an amazing\u00a0organization called Junior Achievement, which is dedicated to giving young people the skills they need to make smart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-small-grants","tag-alternative-spring-break"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/35\/2018\/06\/zohaASB4.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1967,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/1967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}