Teaching Notes November 2024
Excerpt from HEA 447 Syllabus
During this class, students will engage in social experiences (some call these experiments), but we are not doing research, which does not require IRB approval. Students will co-design social experiences as 20% of their grade. Students will design experiences during the first month of class. Examples might include volunteering at a local soup kitchen, working in a shelter, observing people and families struggling with health, income, and social status, and thinking about solutions. Other ideas could include creating a budget and living according to it based on the federal poverty level/guidelines and, journaling about it later and, reviewing local policies and identifying gaps in current local policies, presenting recommendations to local leaders or policymakers. Post your reflections and ideas about this assignment here as a blog. This can happen before you begin the experience, during, or after. This might be a journal reflection, poem, art/drawing, music/rap, dance, or anything that shows me you have completed the experience, and you know something because of it. Share what you know with us.
My Social Experience and Poem
What’s a good day? I went to the bottle drop and met J. Walker.
J. Walker is a self-proclaimed drug addict. He was using drugs while I was talking to him, and he told me about his life. He needs about 30 bucks a day to live, including his cigarettes.
$30
That’s how much he needs to live.
Smoking half a pack a day habit
Pushing a Target grocery cart
Sweating from a 90-degree day
Offering me his bag of cans
For the $4.50 I just gave him from my cans.
I am a really good person
Embarrassed I am like this
I am an addict because I like to feel numb.
Forever, I think?
I tell him
Just one second
That’s all you need
Then a minute, an hour, a day
Start every thought with the choice to be sober
We talk about drugs and addiction.
I’ll do anything - any drug.
Even fentanyl?
No… no way. That’s horrible stuff. I’ve tried it before, and I hated it.
Good, I respond.
We visit a bit longer.
About dumpster diving
Being addicted
Finding cans.
I leave
J Walker was not sober
But he was alive
He’s someone's son, brother, or friend
I’ll be thinking of J as I drive past the bottle drop. For a while…
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