Universities often struggle to secure sufficient workplace learning opportunities. Disasters, however, may offer suitable learning opportunities. This post presents ‘prompt-based journaling’ as means of facilitation of learning.
“Each year, millions of people around the world are affected by natural disasters” say Buschlen, Warner and Goffnett (2015: 33). Often universities recognise both the service learning and development of responsible citizenship opportunities involved for students, through relief community engagements, to among others, implement theoretical concepts learned. Major events such as tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, fires, heat waves, droughts, epidemics, pandemics, diseases, and volcanic eruptions; all require substantial humanitarian logistics relief in order to alleviate suffering and reintroduce supply. “Climate change and environmental degradation, political instability, and chronic poverty and inequality are significant drivers of forced displacement” of people, say Wessells and Kostelny (2021: 225). There is an “increased global awareness of the need for mental health and psychosocial support amidst disasters” they state, and draw attention to Hippocrates ‘Do No Harm’ principle issues such as “poor coordination, the monetization of aid, excessive targeting of aid, the imposition of Western modes of psychiatric and medicalized support, too little attention to capacity building and sustainability, and the marginalization of collective self-help and indigenous, cultural and social supports”.
Often large numbers of people are subjected to traumatic events before, during, and after disasters, with result that trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) become prevalent. Forcibly displaced people furthermore often face myriad social, cultural, and everyday distresses as result of weakened or shattered social support and controls. Apart from lack of basic necessities such as food, health care, or shelter; there are family separation, ongoing insecurity and lack of protection, inability to engage in cultural or religious practices, sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking, recruitment into armed forces or groups, etc.
Prompt-based journaling could be used as means of facilitating learning. Buschlen, Warner and Goffnett (2015: 40) recommend that journal prompts are written in advance and given in sealed envelopes to participanting students, taped inside the cover of a blank notebook. They made use of three prompts, each in a separate envelope, with specific instructions when to open, namely before travelling to the disaster site; during the relief work while on site; and 30 days after the experience; where after journals are completed and returned. Because of the emotional and reflective nature of the data, participating students may request the return of their journal after transcription.
Buschlen, Warner and Goffnett (2015: 36) point out that the ‘3 Rs’, reality, reflection, and reciprocity are essential design elements of service learning, where students learn “from a situation while meeting other process or stakeholder needs”. A natural disaster (reality) would provoke students to engage, “and their personal reflections can ultimately transform into permanent knowledge and skill”. Transformational learning is derived because “Reflections on the service experience expand knowledge to achieve deeper learning”.
Buschlen, E., Warner, C. & Goffnett, S. (2015). Leadership education and service: Exploring transformational learning following a tornado. Journal of Leadership Education, 14(1), 33-54. https://journalofleadershiped.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/14_1_buschlen.pdf
Wessells, M. & Kostelny, K. (2021). Do no harm issues in psychosocial support: Post-tsunami practitioner learning in Sri Lanka. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 225–233. https://doi.org/10.1037/aap0000191
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