During my time at UMass, some classes that I took at have often had overlapping themes even though they were completely different disciplines. For example, SPAN394 (part 1 of IE), my service-learning course: Tutoring in Schools, and my thesis seminar, Conquest by law. A lot of SPAN394 was spent discussing different perspectives, entering different cultures, going to Holyoke Bound, and also service learning. As my IE experience I chose to take a service-learning course tutoring in schools and became a tutor at the Amherst-Pelham Regional Middle School. In addition to tutoring in the classroom, it was paired with a weekly seminar that highlighted how to teach to different learning skills and also discussed the diversity of students. We discussed the possible histories of students that would affect their learning such as being an English learning (ELL) student, or living in poverty. One class was dedicated to the low graduation rates of Latino students in schools where most students were people of color, but most teachers were white and held little expectations from their students. Also, ELL students in non-bilingual programs often were behind the curve but teachers did not lend as much as help as the students truly needed, either because of lack of interest or the lack of time and resources available. Continue reading →