Reflection on the Service Learning project

The past few months have been the most challenging months ever as we were expected to work on our service learning project. But we all know what they usually say, that challenges help us to learn new things and grow.


Service learning is defined as an educational approach that balances academic instructions and directions with the opportunity to serve in the community in order to provide a progressive learning experience. Service learning is a valuable pedagogy as it is the best way to apply the theory that we are taught in lectures in real life. It serves as a platform for us to display the good qualities that we as future teachers have and gives us the opportunity to experience the real life of a classroom. Our service learning task was to prepare a carnival day for the grade R learners in Mareleng.
  

When reflecting we have what we call the DATA process, which is the process that entails the description and the analysis of a certain event. It also involves the theories that may relate to that event and also the action that a person will take after reflecting.


It all started when we were asked to form groups, so that we can work on the project as a group. That was not a problem at all, as we started to work on our project as a group. We came up with suggestions for the name of our group and Ndlelehle Group is the name that we choose for us. After that we discussed the kind of games that we wanted to have on our carnival day. We wanted games that will be fun but also educational, as this was a service learning project meaning that we had to bring in some change in the community.


We then searched for different educational games on the internet and got exactly the kinds of games we were looking for. It was then time to construct this games and have samples as we were expected to present the games to our lecturer before the carnival day. I must say that we had an amazing presentation and we delivered things that were expected and more. 

That was not the end of it. It was actually the beginning of something else. As it was the time were the hard work really started, with the big day coming up. During this time there were obstacles standing on our way and at some point we had doubts. We made a lot of mistakes but we had to find ways to rectify them.

Finally it was the 05^th of May, the day we have all been waiting for. We found a perfect spot in the given venue, were all our games will be visible. After putting everything together, we really appreciated the efforts, hard work that we`ve put into this project and the late nights we had to sacrifice. At that moment I personally understood the quote saying,” hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard” because we had to work hard in order to reveal the talent that we have.The children finally arrived and the joy that was on their little faces, it was priceless. They played and enjoyed all games that were prepared by the groups and loved the gifts they got at the end of the day.

The carnival day would have been a better if the given venue was not exposed to the sun, as this was not a good condition for some of the children. Also there should have been some snack and drinks to offer the children as they were hungry after playing for an hour. But all in all, this day proved that we (as future Foundation Phase teachers) can do anything. We are willing to work hard in order to obtain this degree. This is a day that we will all remember as it was one of the most amazing days of our lives.