A couple weeks ago I got an email from the Alachua County School Board. In it, there were a bunch of volunteering opportunities that the school board was promoting; everything from campus clean-ups and beautification projects to after-school councilors. For some reason, over the past couple months, I've felt the need to do something good. I watch the news every night and there are always stories about war, crime, humanitarian crises, corruption and death, and it makes me sad. But Brian Williams always has a "Making A Difference" story at the end of the Nightly News broadcast, which restores my hope in humanity. I've been trying to do good, even if it's just donating $5 each month, recycling, or being kind to all the customers who come to Borders. But after reading about the school volunteer programs, I thought about how cool it would be to donate my time to one of them.
The one program that really jumped out at me was Rockin' Reader! Volunteers would sign up with a school, a teacher, and a time, and go to that school and help the children learn to read. I guess studies have shown that kids who work one-on-one with individuals learn quicker/better and develop higher self-esteem, so that's pretty much what Rockin' Readers hopes to accomplish. So, on Tuesdays from 11:00 to whenev, I'll be in Ms. Odim's kindergarten classroom at Williams Elementary helping her 17 under-achieving students learn to read.
This afternoon was my first volunteer session and it was an eye opener. Ms. Odim's students are all under-priviledged, African Americans- many of which have a hard time learning. Ms. Odim's schedule has the "Reading Workshop" from 8:30 to 10, so when I arrived at 11:00, the class had already moved on to the "Math Workshop" part of the day. Ms. Odim asked if I would be OK with helping some of the struggling students complete their worksheet. I was surprised at how some of the kids couldn't follow color patterns. The worksheet had a pattern of different colored bears, and the students were supposed to figure out what color the last bear should be. Some kids couldn't figure out that after seeing blue, red, green, blue, red, green, blue, red, ____, that the last color should be green. I could tell that some kids weren't paying attention and just didn't care, but other kids just couldn't understand. It made me sad.
When the kids were in art class, Ms. Odim and I sat down to talk about what I felt comfortable doing with the kids. She acknowledged that since the program was Rockin' Readers, she felt obligated to let me read with the kids, but I told her that I was a guest in her classroom and am happy to help her with whatever she needed, whether it was indeed reading, or even math, art projects, helping her grade, organize, whatev. I just have so many cool memories from all the fun things I did in kindergarten, and if I can do something that makes a difference in the education or life of at least one of these kids, then I'll feel so good on the inside.
you are too cute nicki. don't forget to add this to your resume
ReplyDeleteyay nick! YOU make me so happy! It is sobering the differences in abilities of the students in our country. My 6th graders this summer couldn't write a paragraph. My roommate's 6th graders can read on average at a 3rd grade level. They can't spell basic words like "this" and "I" "our". What you're doing for these kids is an incredible thing. You rock!!
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, my blogspot dashboard does NOT show new blogposts from you, which is unfortunate because you were the only one I could reliably count on for fairly regular posts. Everyone else is like once every 10 days, which is not fair. idk why, but they disappeared off my blogs you're following updates. pissed.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, love the volunteering. My students in Korean seem to be further along that your students. My 6th graders today were asking me what donate and cunning mean. I guess they were in readings for their exam prep (exams monday).