Sombryn Lemler
12/6/02
Title of Project:
One on One with Cross Hollows Students
Local Contact Person:
Mrs. Mindy Elliot
Deciding on a project:
For years, I have wanted to be a history teacher so I knew that doing my service learning project in a school setting would be beneficial to me so I could gain experience. However, I had been wondering what age group would be best for me to teach. The idea of teaching middle school had always appealed to me so I thought I would give Cross Hollows Intermediate School a try.
When I came up with the idea of helping at Cross Hollows, the last thing I wanted to do was to be more of a nuisance than help. After all, the main idea of this assignment was to help and not just do it for a grade. So I decided that I would go and ask what help in the field of history was needed. Because my little brother attends Cross Hollows, I had heard from him that the school was looking for volunteers to tutor students. I went to the school and asked my brother’s 6th grade history teacher, Mrs. Mindy Elliot, if she needed help. We talked about what would work best with her lesson plan and what would be best for the students. We decided that I could have the most impact by being a tutor as opposed to teaching a lesson or creating handouts. Most days, my time spent at Cross Hollows was with students who were behind in their work. However, there were other days when the students were busy that Mrs. Elliot had me run errands for her like making copies or my personal favorite: laminating.
Timetable and Schedule of Work:
Because of the flexible nature of this project and my tendency to put things off, I decided that I would commit to going two days a week. That way, I could treat my volunteering like a job or a class with set times when I needed to be there. Plus, the deadline wouldn’t sneak up on me and Mrs. Elliot would know when to expect me. Considering both of our schedules, Mrs. Elliot decided that it would be best for both of us if I came on Mondays and Tuesdays from 1:45 to 2:30. I did this for the months of October, November and the beginning of December. Overall that is more than 12 hours of service.
Beneficiaries and Intended Audience:
My projects main beneficiaries were the students. The students I assisted were in great need of a personal tutor that could help them in the specific areas that they could not get in the full classroom setting. It is ridiculous to assume that all students learn at the same rate and in the same way. The American system of public education can be compared to nineteenth century industrial mills where the students are told to sit down, shut up and finish assignments like the rest of the class. Kids who don’t learn the same way as other students are called “special” or branded with a learning disability. Then, they are either embarrassed by being put into a special needs class, or simply just ignored and forced to always be behind. But sadly, there is no really other way to do it. More and more students enter the public education system every year with fewer and fewer teachers. Teachers just can’t help every student when there are 30+ kids in a classroom. Volunteers are greatly needed to ease the teacher to student ratio. Not only that, but many kids are not keeping up with the rest of the class in the most fundamental subjects and falling through the cracks. Many of the students that I helped had more than a little trouble reading. They were still on a first or second grade reading level even though they had been educated through the fifth grade. Sounding out words was a chore and it took more time for them to read the question than to find the answer. In helping them, I realized that these students were bright kids that shouldn’t be having trouble with simple reading. All these kids need is to have someone there to help them sound out words for 15 minutes a day. Unfortunately, these kids might never have that luxury.
I believe that my project not only affected the students, but also the families of the students who did not have the time or resources at home to devote to the children. Many times, children that I helped would tell me that they would have done this at home, but no one had the time or would make the effort to sit down and help. I had the pleasure of working repeatedly with one student (I’ll call her Jamie) whose family had no time for her. Jamie explained to me one day how she was worried about her family situation. She said that her parents were planning on divorcing soon and that both of her parents worked most of the time. Her siblings were all either in jail or married and living elsewhere. When I looked at her homework to help her redo it, I couldn’t help but notice that an effort had been made to complete it on her own. She would have every answer filled in even though few would be correct or even spelled right. It was easy to tell that she was frustrated and thought that filling in a blank was better than leaving it empty. Because of this, her answers would be that Egypt is the capital of the United States or that France is the largest ocean. So, one by one, we would painstakingly re-answer every question until the class period was over. Not surprisingly, Jamie didn’t seem to care that her assignment was finished correctly, but that someone had taken the time to sit down with her.
Technology-related resources or applications:
This project didn’t require that I have much technological expertise. However, I did need to know how to use computers and the internet because many times I used them to help the students look up answers.
Connections to other service learning projects:
I saw on the History 2700/2710 service learning web page that other students had made lesson plans. This looked like a great idea to me. I think that it also would be a great idea to tutor kids outside of the school setting. If I could choose a different way to do my project I would try to make it so I wouldn’t have to be tutoring them during school hours. The best part was getting to know the kids and a lot of times that had to be put on hold in order to finish up before the next period started.
Workload to complete the project:
The nature of my project was not so much work as it was time. My goal was so spend at least 15 days at the school. This way the students wouldn’t feel like I was a guest but that I was part of their class. Because the class was studying ancient Egypt, I thought it would be a good idea to familiarize myself with the course subject matter to be of better service. I spent a lot of time researching the period and getting to know the curriculum. Other than that, it was really easy because I basically just had to show up prepared to help and have fun with the kids.
Time in the Classroom:
My day at Cross Hollows would start at 1:45 PM. This when the kids would get back from their lunch break and recess. Because of this, they were usually really hyper and talkative. Most of the time Mrs. Elliot had a few kids in mind for me to take to the back room. By the time my kids were situated and calmed down, I only had about 20-25 minutes of real working time. On average I had about two or three kids at a time. They usually all would have to work on the same assignment which was tough because I had to make sure that no one was cheating off another student. Other times the kids would have different assignments and I would just be there to help them read and answer the questions. The hardest part for me was to let them get the answers themselves. Because we were always in a hurry, I would get impatient and be tempted to blurt out the answer. It was also a challenge to get the kids to concentrate on their work. It was the most effective when I could convey to the students my excitement for history and learning. My favorite was when I only had one student to work with. That way, we weren’t as rushed and it was easier to stay focused. Plus, we could get to know each other better while we worked on the assignments.
On the preceding pages I have copies of evaluations that I gave to some of the students I helped on my last day in class. I wish that their criticism of me could have been a little more helpful and I’m wondering if their responses were biased because I was sitting at the same table. At any rate, I am pleased that they enjoyed my help as much as I enjoyed giving it.
Conclusion
Overall, my service learning project was a great experience for me. It has made me even more excited to become a teacher and I have gained a lot of experience that I know I will use during my student teaching and eventually with my own students. It was so much fun. I am definitely planning on regularly going back to Mrs. Elliot’s class and continuing my service to the students at Cross Hollows.