MY SOCIAL ACTION PROJECT - REFLECTION

• The social action project that I had done for this years teaching experience was called the Drug Awareness Campaign. This was chosen to bring awareness to the grade 7 learners as they are growing teenagers and are going to be moving to a new environment next year.

• The effectiveness of this project on creating awareness, educating, uniting, and parent and community involvement, was good and each of these aspects were taken into consideration when planning the project. The learners and the school were able to take home a good lesson on drugs and the effects on drugs as there was a live show showcasing what happens to a person who takes drugs. For my learning experience, after I had done the action project, the grade 7 teachers came up to me and exclaimed what a good impact it had on them and how it had and will help the learners. This helped me to feel better about the project as in the beginning I was nervous. This had shown me that this project had an impact on the school and I believe in the future they will have more awareness campaigns for their learners, and not only for the grade 7's. This had also had an impact on the community as I featured a rehab center in my project, so this had allowed them to come out and teach learners about what they have gone through.

• The service learning had changed me personally by allowing me to see and understand how valuable the campaign was for the school and learners. It had given me an insight into myself to go ahead and see what difference I can make to learners as a student teacher and as a qualified teacher. It personally changed me to use and guide my professional life to do good in my life and to the lives of others.

• Service learning has developed me professionally by allowing me to come out of my shell of only teaching content knowledge to now going ahead and teaching and inspiring learners and even teachers on new things that bring awareness to them. The new knowledge, skills and attitudes that I had learnt through service learning is professionalism to outsiders (the rehab center that I had featured in my campaign). I had also learnt that as a teacher, I do not only teach and not only surround myself with teachers, but I would also adapt and learn to work with other people.

• The benefit of this initiative to the school was that the school had had their learners learn something new that will help them now and in the future and they had learnt it in a new way. Another way that it had benefitted the school was that it came from people outside the school (not their normal teachers' voices teaching them "another topic") but it also gave them something to look forward to learning.