LLED 3461S/3461S-H Service-Learning in Teacher Education

Mondays, 4:40-7:25PM 201 Aderhold Hall
Professor: Peter Smagorinsky
Office Phone: 706-542-7866
smago@uga.edu
Office Hours: Mondays, 3:30-4:30 and by appointment

Welcome to LLED 3461S/3461S/H! My name is Peter Smagorinsky, and I have designed this English Education Foundations course to help you learn about the people you will eventually be teaching: students representing many cultures and personal makeups and orientations. What follows is a description of how the course works, and how you'll work in the course. It's a symbiotic relationship.

Before I start, let me introduce myself. I developed this class as a UGA Service-Learning Fellow in 2007-8, and have taught it since 2009. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I created it to help UGA students learn to see the world from the perspective of people much different from themselves.

You should know that I'm a bit different myself. Technically, I'm mentally ill: I'm on the Asperger's spectrum, have chronic high anxiety, experience obsessive-compulsiveness, and exhibit mild Tourette's Syndrome. I take a daily medication for anxiety (Paxil), and need to additionally take beta-blockers to fly in planes (Xanax) and to give public presentations and lectures (Inderal).

If you have some sort of diagnosis of your own, don't worry: You're OK here. If you wish to read some autobiographical pieces I've written, see the following; the first is a family memoir, the second is a personal account of my career:

Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Confessions of a mad professor: An autoethnographic consideration of neuroatypicality, extranormativity, and education. Teachers College Record, 113, 1701-1732.

Smagorinsky, P. (2011). NCTE & me: Reflections on the Council's role in one teacher's life. English Journal, 101(1), 111-116.


Before the first class of 2017's spring semester, I also felt it important to prepare the class with a letter about teaching a course about human diversity on the heels of the election of President Trump, who ran against "political correctness," which in my view refers to efforts to respect and dignify the lives of people different from ourselves. If you're interested in that document, here you go. This letter additionally served as the basis for an article on teaching during politically tumultuous times. You are welcome to share and discuss it with friends and family members, no matter what their political orientation. My goal is not to persuade or force you to adopt my personal political perspective. Rather, it's to help you understand how this course fits with the current political landscape.

Course Description from the UGA Bulletin

Community work with adolescents (mentoring, tutoring, etc.), common readings in education, and interactions with professional educators. English education majors build on individual and shared experiences and readings to examine issues of English education in public schools.
Non-traditional format: Discussion plus community service work.

My Description of Service-Learning in Teacher Education

This course involves UGA students in 15 or more hours of tutoring and mentoring community members whose cultural backgrounds and life experiences are substantially different from their own: students attending Classic City High School, located at 440 Dearing Extension in Athens. UGA students will both work with CCHS students and produce a Course Project in which they reflect on this experience and consider its implications for secondary school teaching in diverse educational settings.

In addition, students enrolled in Service-Learning in Teacher Education will attend class on campus each week. During these class meetings your primary activity will be conducting Book Club discussions in which you discuss the readings in conjunction with your experiences from your tutoring relationships.

My goal for the class is for each of you to develop a personal and academic relationship with an Athens-area teen or young adult who comes from a cultural background that is different from your own. Through this experience, you will:

Document Download Center

Please download and read each of the following documents:
Clarke County Public Schools Volunteer Information Form
Classic City High School Mentoring Guide
Athens/Clark County Criminal Background Check Form

Please also download and read the English Education Quality Assurance Contract, which outlines the expectations for professional conduct during your work at Classic City High School.

The following link takes you to an article on sexual attractions between female teachers and male students. You will be only slightly older than the students you work with and need to be aware of pitfalls of attractions to them. In particular, you need to be aware of the consequences of trying to "rescue" a "bad boy." The article was written by a UGA doctoral student based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Got your attention yet?

Johnson, T. S. (2004). ''It's pointless to deny that that dynamic is there'': Sexual tensions in secondary classrooms. English Education, 37, 5-29.

Service-Learning and Faith Communities

If you undertake your teaching career with a Christian devotion, then you might be interested to know that service-learning education, to some, may serve as one means through which to undertake your service mission. Please understand that religion plays no role in my own life, and so I am not offering this information to recruit you to a faith of any kind. Rather, I'm posting this information because many of my students over time have had a deep commitment to their faith communities, and this association between faith and service might help some orient themselves to the work you'll undertake in this class at our field site, Classic City HS.

I recognize that many, if not all, faiths include a fundamental dedication to service, and so would urge others to consider this link to be an example of the potential of service for enabling deep engagement with this semester's activities, rather than the endorsement of one faith's exclusive claim to providing help to others in the community. Further, I understand that exceptional devotion to service is available without any religious feelings or faith community membership whatsoever. I respect all faith communities that might be represented in LLED 3461, and also the absence of faith in your life. So, please understand that by posting this link, I am not proselytizing on behalf of faith to any specific devotional community. My intent is to alert you to one possible way that this aspect of faith might be realized in your course experiences this semester.

At CCHS, please do not use your tutoring and mentoring as a means of religious conversion! CCHS is a public, secular school, and its priorities, mission, and legal restrictions should be respected, and should guide your conduct and decisions at this site.

Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse

UGA students working in schools are considered "mandatory reporters" under state law. This means that you are required by law to report suspected child abuse (for instance, if a student tells you about abuse or you suspect it based on a student's physical appearance or behavior). If you suspect child abuse, you must report this immediately to the school principal/site director, your UGA instructor, the UGA Police at 706-542-2200, and the Department of Children and Family Services at 1-855-GACHILD. UGA has a dedicated website for more details, and you may also download a PDF for additional College-level requirements.

LEGAL NOTICE: Effective July 1, 2012, Georgia House Bill 1176, Part V, Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse, Section 5-1, requires volunteers who work with children, including educational services, to report suspected child abuse. The state code reads in part as follows: "If a person is required to report child abuse pursuant to this subsection because that person attends to a child pursuant to such person's duties as a member of the staff of an employee of or volunteer at a hospital, school, social agency, or similar facility, that person shall notify the person in charge of the facility, or the designated delegate thereof, and the person so notified shall report or cause a report to be made in accordance with this 1214 Code section."

Natalie Cox, in UGA's Legal Affairs office, adds: "Volunteers should report immediately to the director of the facility and their UGA faculty advisor. In trainings or informational packets with volunteers, you may wish to provide this in a writing that includes a name and contact information of the director and advisor. They can certainly contact Office of Legal Affairs with questions and the UGA advisors should notify us immediately if they receive any reports."

Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse 2018 Revised Document

PUBLICATIONS ABOUT LLED 3461-S

This class has been written about for publication a number of times. If you wish to read about its purpose and processes, the following might be of value.

Barnes, M. E. (2016). The student as teacher educator in service-learning. Journal of Experiential Education, 1-16.

Barnes, M. E., & Caprino, K. (2016). Analyzing service-learning reflections through Fink's taxonomy. Teaching in Higher Education, 1-18.

Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Service-learning as a vehicle for examining assumptions about culture and education. In A. Honigsfeld & A. Cohan (Eds.), Breaking the mold of school instruction and organization: Preservice and inservice teacher education (pp. 65-74). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Smagorinsky, P. (2014). Service-learning in an alternative school as mediated through book club discussions. In V. Kinloch & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Service-learning in literacy education: Possibilities for teaching and learning (pp. 85-103). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Smagorinsky, P. (2019). Inquiry and service-learning in teacher education. In E. A. Kahn, A. Bouque, D. Forde, T. M. McCann, & C. C. Walter (Eds.), An invitation to inquiry: Possibilities for immersive literacy processes (pp. 119-136). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Smagorinsky, P., with Brasley, A., Johnson, R., & Shurtz, L. (2017). A letter to teacher candidates at the dawn of the Trump presidency. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 16(3), 319-330.

Smagorinsky, P., Clayton, C. M., & Johnson, L. L. (2015). Distributed scaffolding in a service-learning course. Theory into Practice, 54(1), 71-78.

Smagorinsky, P., Johnson, L. L., & Clayton, C. M. (2015). Synthesizing formal and experiential concepts in a service-learning course. In J. Brass & A. Webb (Eds.), Reclaiming English Language Arts methods courses: Critical issues and challenges for teacher educators in top-down times (pp. 123-134). New York: Routledge.

Smagorinsky, P., & Lang, M. (2023). Learning to create environments for deafness among hearing preservice teachers: A defectological approach. Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction, 38, .

UGA Resources on Parenting

If you or someone you know is in a phase of life that involves parenting (or the expectation of parenting), there are resources available to assist you. Student Care and Outreach within the Office of the Dean of Students is available to you and can provide you with important information and resources; you can contact them at 706-542-7774. Additionally, the student group UP at UGA works to provide peer support and resources to students who are pregnant or parenting; you can find out more about their work at http://www.upatuga.org/, or contact them directly at upliftingparents.uga@gmail.com.

UGA Resources for Services Supporting Well-Being

Thank a teacher!

Things I am Required to Say on the Syllabus

Note: The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary.

Another note: All academic work must meet the standards contained in A Culture of Honesty. All students are responsible for informing themselves about those standards before performing any academic work.

Final Note: I am required to say these things on my syllabus. I assume that someone who is planning to go into teaching will not be academically dishonorable or personally disreputable. Please prove me right on this.

Spring Semester Calendar 2020

Spring Semester Calendar 2020