ROUGH 2 FINAL

November 12, 2018

General Education Capstone Rough Draft

Introduction

In recent years, school violence has been on the rise in schools. Violence cases range from simple to sophisticated ones. Simple ones can be in the form of school bullying while complicated ones include students attacking others by deadly weapons (Blosnich & Bossarte, 2011). A good number of students face violence at school and the vice is on the increase. Some of the consequences of such cases have been severe harms and even death. There is a need to address such vices in schools and eliminate them completely. That will help to level the learning environment so that all students will have an equal opportunity to succeed.

In service learning, students are given a chance to practice what they learned in class in a real-world environment. Students from XYZ University can use this opportunity to help the organization to solve cases of violence at schools and volunteer as data collectors so as to enhance and develop research that shall offer solutions to the menace of school violence. Service learning can also be utilized by students in the classroom through the analysis of various community problems and the possible solutions. Therefore, the availability of service learning and the efforts of The Education Trust Organization can help to reduce cases of school violence and support students from poor backgrounds.

Community Organization

The community organization that I chose is The Education Trust Organization. This organization was established in the year 1980 with a duty to promote the education standards for all students' right from the kindergarten level to colleges and universities. The organization's foremost goal is to seal the gaps in educational accomplishments and more specifically, the young people. The organization is mandated to make policies and advocate for better learning standards. They mostly focus on learners from poor or low income and marginalized groups. They focus on such students because they have a high likelihood of experiencing challenges during their learning time. The organization advances proposals after carrying out thorough research o establish the major challenges facing the students. They then come up with policies that can help to improve the education standards of students and then create public awareness so as to get the support of the government. According to the organization's research, school violence is a vice that is caused by a myriad of issues including, personality problems, drug abuse, violence as portrayed in the media and challenging upbringing (The Education Trust, 2013). Making of new policies is also an effective way of reducing cases of school violence (Shaughnessy, 2017).

Community Partnerships

The Education Trust Organization collaborates with a variety of community partners with a view of improving the country's education policies. The partners are spread out from the local areas of operation to the national level. With the help of such organizations, it is able to come up with policies that can help solve the problems affecting learning and the learning environment. Local organizations offer tremendous support because they understand the problems that are unique to a given area. For instance, the organization has set out to improve the quality of teachers by partnering with Illinois local partners (Peske& Haycock, 2006). Some partners finance the activities of the organization enabling it to reach more areas and institutions of learning. Most of the organizational partners are in the private sector as well as nongovernmental organizations.

Volunteers

The main projects of The Education Trust Organization are in schools and thus the major players are the school management and teachers. They volunteer to be part of the organization's projects so as to improve the standards of learning in their schools through skill enhancement. The organization is a nonprofit organization, therefore, it has no mandate to implement any of the policies but they are implemented by teachers by way of volunteering. While carrying out research, the organization also relies on volunteers to gather information that is pertinent to the research (The Education Trust Fund, 2014).

Humanitarian Considerations

The organization serves mostly students from poor backgrounds and minority groups. Education is a tough journey which takes more than a decade or even two. During such periods, students experience a lot of challenges and difficulties including violence at school and economic hardships. Children from poor families fail to raise school fees, which puts their education in jeopardy. Most students drop out because of such challenges (Haberland and Rogow, 2015). According to Wolf (2015), students who fail to know how to learn when they are at grade three do drop out of schools. Therefore, providing the necessary resources will be a key tool to reduce the chances of school dropouts. For instance, offering free secondary education helps students from humble backgrounds to remain in schools.

Cross-Cultural Challenges

The Education Trust Organization works I many countries around the world and therefore faces a lot of cultural challenges. For instance, in some countries, there is an increased rate of teenage pregnancies and early marriages which affects the learning of female students. Such students will drop out of school and thus will not engage in any education programs (Haberland and Rogow 2015). There should be a way of avoiding such challenges and students should be at the forefront of fighting such vices. Students should know that education is a pillar of life and that there is no substitute. They should value education and let their parents support their vision. They can be organized in groups where they encourage and support one another to value academics and strive to reach the highest level possible.

Roadblocks

In academics, there exist numerous roadblocks that may hinder the success of a student. Such roadblocks include a lack of or insignificant willingness to be successful in education, and lack of interest from students and their parents. Other challenges are increased fees to an extent that parents cannot afford it. There are also other expensive materials or resources that are needed by students.

Future Vision

The major vision of the organization is to breach the education gap between the rich and the poor students. According to Ladson-Billings (2006), students from low-income families have poor academic achievements and minimal opportunities compared to those from rich and well to do families. Therefore, the organization s a blessing to students from poor families because they have a chance to get a better education and thus increase their chances of succeeding in society. The organization also influences the making of policies in the education sector so that such policies can be favorable to children from poor families. Service learning is also a great tool where students can act as volunteers in collecting data meant for research to support such students and in decision making.

Challenges

Despite the fact that the organization has achieved a lot since its inceptions, it has also experienced a variety of challenges including, the existence of a conflict of interest leading to disagreements among members making it incapable of meeting all its objectives and goals (Burki, 2014). Another problem is that there are many students who need help and resources are always not enough to meet the demand. Lastly, manipulating legislators to make encouraging policies is a hard task and the organization has no choice but to abide by the set laws and regulations which may be unfavorable for its activities.

Improvements

To meet the goals of the organizations and feel any improvements, the organization will have to involve the major stakeholders who are students. Decision making should be solely focused on helping and promoting the welfare of students from poor backgrounds. The ambitions and desires of learners should be given top priority. The organization should also have stakeholders closer so that in case a problem arises, it can solve it in good time. The Education Trust Organization should as well focus on the major goals before the minor ones.

Conclusion

It is important that The Education Trust Organization, together with students from service learning, work together to address the social vice of school violence and other problems affecting students from poor backgrounds. The paper had various sections starting with community partnerships. In this section, the most important part is to remember the functions of ET including helping children from low-income families. In community partnerships, local partners provide solutions to local problems while other organizations offer the needed resources. Volunteers consist of main teachers who implement the policies of ET and thus help to reduce cases of school violence and improve their quality. Working in different countries has brought about challenges from different places with the main emphasis on the education of the girl child. Students face roadblocks while trying to acquire education such as fees while the organization facing challenges like the inadequacy of resources to meet the needs of the many students. Lastly, the organization should e focused on reducing challenges and increasing its reach so that many students can benefit. To do so, it can also partner with the government to get the needed resources easily.

References