Human Relations class at William Penn University volunteered for Habitat for Humanity on April 12, 2011

The William Penn Human Relations Class & Habitat for Humanity

Education students from the Human Relations class at William Penn University volunteered for Habitat for Humanity on April 12, 2011. Director, Blaine Vos, came to speak to the class earlier in the semester about Ruby Payne’s book Bridges Out of Poverty. Throughout the year, the class has looked at multiple subcultures that are present within a classroom and learned how teachers can help students through integrating multicultural education.

As part of the class, students are taught to recognize biases and to develop ways to incorporate equality and social justice within the classroom, taking away the hidden curriculum within their courses. The experience of working for an organization, such as Habitat for Humanity, gave students the ability to reflect on their personal biases, as well as becoming more educated in how Habitat helps communities.

Students helped in landscaping the home while building a deeper appreciation for their future students. In reflection, students were asked to share how the experience impacted them and how they might use something like this in their future teaching careers. One student’s comments summed up the majority of the responses by saying, “The few hours we spent helping out Habitat for Humanity was a humbling and inspiring experience while at the same time giving me a better appreciation and understanding of what some of my future students may go home to, or in some cases, not go home to.”

This was one way that students of William Penn University were able to give back to the community. Professor Dana Oswald stated, “I hope that all of our future teachers will find ways to implement service-learning into their future classrooms. So much can be learned when students give to others without expecting something in return. It helps to build a deeper appreciation for what we have and how to care for others. We want to thank Blaine Vos for his support and help in organizing our experience. We look forward to future opportunities.”