The Shaukat Initiative: A Trojan Family Education

By: Talia Walters ‘20

If you’ve looked at my writer’s bio (available just up there at the top of the page if you’re interested in learning more about the writers of Trojans360 – I promise we’re really cool people!), then you know I spend a lot of time teaching languages. Luckily, this past semester, I was given the opportunity to teach French to high school students, allowing me to make my love of language education accessible to those students who are often forgotten in the Trojan Family.

I was an inaugural member of the Shaukat Initiative.

First, I guess I should give you a little background information. The Shaukat Initiative is a newer program through the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics in Dornsife founded by USC Alum Mazen Loan. The general idea is that USC Students are able to teach their own classes for the children of the USC faculty that work behind the scenes – janitorial staff, kitchen staff, etc. – in order to make USC education accessible for every member of the Trojan Family. The classes are often supplemental to what students are learning in their high school classes, and there are unique and fun classes being taught as well.

Our founder, Mazen Loan, got the idea from a family member who decided to do the same thing with the children of his employees. The project was hugely successful, and when Mazen saw the same things happening at USC, he decided he wanted to bring the project to our campus.

Thanks to the fact that we’re housed in the Levan Institute, we like to place a heavy focus on philosophy, ethics, and in particular the Socratic Method. Uniquely, every class has elements of the Socratic Method in its teaching style that allow the students to participate in their education in a hands-on and engaging manner. This also allows the topics of each class to range widely depending on the teacher’s own passions and interests. For example, we have classes like:

• French – This is my class, and it’s teaching high school students the basics of the French language. Many of my students have never taken French before, so it starts from the very beginning, teaching basic vocabulary and grammar. In addition, we interweave a lot of cultural discussions about things like the decolonization of West Africa.
  
• AP Biology – In addition to super fun and unique classes, we also want to give students the chance to supplement their learning in everyday classes. We have active STEM majors teaching AP supplemental courses to help students get better scores. They follow a lot of the same chapters and work that the high school students do but apply new viewpoints and topics to the lessons.
  
• A Literary Inquiry into Fate vs. Free Will – On the more unique end of the spectrum, we have classes like this literature-based class. The teacher chooses excerpts from pieces of literature, and they talk about how Fate and Free Will interact within the story. It’s almost entirely Socratic in nature, which is a great way for students to be able to self-teach and explain their own opinions on the story.

I have a lot of passions that I wanted to explore while at USC.

In particular, I love the idea of communication and language, and I’m a strong believer that using a language you spent time learning is the most rewarding experience you can have. It is always more valuable to hear a person speaking in their native language than in your native language, because if they’re speaking in a second language, they’re speaking from a translation in their brain, but if they’re speaking in their native language, they’re speaking from the meaning in their heart.

I also am particularly passionate about public access to education. Academia today is full of gate keepers and barriers that make it difficult to learn. The process of knowledge and education is elitist. This is best seen in examples like how expensive academic journals are, and even if you find a way to spend a ton on academic journals, the language that surrounds academia is impossible to understand and too flowery to be informative for the general public.

This program allowed me a forum to explore both of those passions simultaneously, and it means a lot that I got to be one of the first members of such a cool program.

The program is really great for everyone involved. The students end up super engaged in small classes where they get one-on-one attention and can take the class the way that they’re interested in. It makes one of the best college educations in the nation available to the families who make it possible for us to go here. All of my students have been incredibly responsive to the class, and were creating whole sentences and reading whole passages after only a few weeks of working together. I know that a lot of other student teachers have felt the same way about their classes. In addition, the parents were incredibly on board with the program, and they’re thankful for the work that we’re doing for their children.

And the teachers get benefits too. You’re able to bring education to the families who make your own educational privilege possible, and that in and of itself provides a ton of internal gratification. Seeing kids coming to your class and trying hard and learning a lot about the things you love talking about is rewarding. But that’s not to say there aren’t external rewards too. Since you’re entirely in charge of your own class (you write the syllabus, you choose the topics, you find the materials, you do everything yourself), it’s a huge resumé booster. A lot of non-profit organizations post-graduation would love to see teaching experience on your resumé, and the best doers are the ones who have also taught.

If any of this has caught your attention, and you’re now wondering how you can get involved, then keep reading, because this information is for you!

A couple things to know before you dive head first:

1. Our mission at the Shaukat Initiative is to make a Trojan education accessible to everyone who’s a part of our family. This means offering supplemental educational programs for the children of USC faculty who may not be able to access it otherwise. As a volunteer for the Shaukat Initiative, you will be directly teaching classes of up to 10 students.
   
2. Since we are housed in the Levan Ethics Institute on campus, an important aspect of our program is to incorporate ethical discussions into our classes no matter the subject. This means our primary means of teaching is through the Socratic Method.
   
3. Each academic cycle will be approached with a clean slate, meaning classes will be determined not on a set schedule but instead with feedback from both the volunteer educators and the participating students. Beyond using the Socratic Method, our volunteers have a fair amount of leeway in topics, activities, syllabus, etc. This is YOUR class, and we want you to feel like it is.
   
4. All classes will take place on the University Park Campus, meaning your students will come to you. These classes will take place two times a week for two or three weeks every month, varying in times that work best for yourself and your students. Again, as the volunteer educator, you have a fair amount of leeway as to exactly when you meet.
   
5. We are actively seeking out STEM educators. We are looking for anyone who is passionate in any subject, but right now we have a high demand for Mathematics and Science with a very low supply of teachers to meet our demand.
   
6. This is an unpaid position. We’re looking for volunteer educators, and the purpose of the program is not a job but instead a way to give back to the community that’s helped us so much. 
   

If all of those sound good to you, then you might be the educator that we’re looking for! We’re currently in the market for educators for next semester, so click HERE in order to go to the application.

And if you have any questions, feel free to direct them to me or attend the upcoming Instructor Info Session on Tuesday, November 13th at 6pm in VKC 206. You kind find out more about the event and RSVP HERE.  

All in all, it’s a really great program especially if you’re passionate about giving back to our family that keep us going and if you love teaching and education. Otherwise, the experience is yours, and you can make it how you’d like to.

We’d be happy to add you to our family!

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