Venture Outside Our Comfort Zone

Note: If you're looking for the service assignment, look one entry down from this one.

Due: 11/30 (Monday, BY NOON)

We'll discuss your responses in class on 12/ 1, Tuesday.

 

UC 160.12 - blog assignment for our “Venture Outside Our Comfort Zone” – visit to the Noor Islamic Cultural Center (Mosque) in Columbus:

Three Important Questions for You to Write Your Responses (stress one of the three):

1.     1.  Before your visit to Noor, what were some of your personal attitudes, understandings, and feelings about Muslims, Islam, Mosques? Were any of your thoughts confirmed by your visit to Noor; were any of your thoughts changed or refuted by your visit to Noor?

2.      2. Before your visit to Noor, were you comfortable with the thought of visiting a Mosque? How did your experience at the Mosque compare with your feelings before your went? Did anything at the Mosque surprise you; challenge you; make you feel even more uncomfortable; make you feel more comfortable?

3.     3.  Imagine you are telling a family member or a friend back home about your experiences at Ohio Wesleyan so far. You start telling them about our visit to the Mosque, and they stop you to express their concerns about Muslims. How would you respond?

Service Assignment

Important Blog Entry: Reflection on the Service Project at the LSS Food Pantry

Due: 11/16/M, by noon

Between noon and class on Tuesday, read everyone’s submissions here, and be prepared to discuss their experiences and yours in class on 11/17.

By now, you should have completed your service hours at the LSS Food Pantry.

Read Adam Davis, “What We Don’t Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Service” (its on the wiki under "Readings"). 

Davis raises some serious questions about our motives for providing volunteer service to those less fortunate to ourselves. Did your experience at the food bank reflect or contradict any of Davis’s comments. Respond to at least one of his assertions, either defending it or rejecting it in the light of your own experiences.  Here is the one I intend to respond to, but you can respond to any passage you want to:

We become significantly more cynical when we turn to those who explain service by appealing to the reputation it wins for the server. Here the good of the server remains primary, but the good of the served is tertiary rather than secondary. I ladle food onto your plate because others who see me do so will think better of me. And, oh yeah, you won’t be quite so hungry.