Service Learning Prompt #4

As a middle class white American, i find myself somewhat at odds with large portions of the student body. Many of the students seem to come from relatively poor, minority group, and this makes it somewhat difficult to understand and interpret how some of these children function and react to situations. In many ways, i feel like seeing first hand how younger students of this type function in a school setting is enlightening to me in many ways. Being able to see how other members of society function in a school system that i once went through helps me to see things in a completely different cultural standpoint. Having to see what these kids go through, as opposed to how i know i went through everything is interesting to see. I feel like there is much i can learn from them, and conversely there is much i can teach them in return. I feel as though both myself and the students can pull something of importance out of this experience. In many ways, i feel that i would be somewhat ill-equipped to teach students in this setting, simply because i do not have much knowledge in reference to what their life at home might be like. As a member of the middle class white American group, i find that i have no idea what life might have been like growing up in a home where my parents did not speak the same language as i did, or perhaps didn't have much parenting foundation in general. In general i feel as though in many ways i could try to help some of these children, by attempting to give them something that i always had and appreciated as a child, which is some sort of structure, and a caring, gentle hand to guide me through the institution of school. In many ways, this experience has opened my eyes to these young children of a completely different culture, and shown me how different they are from whatever misconception i had conceived of them. Until now, i had always saw minority groups to function in a much different way, even with children. I had the predisposed bias that because these children were brought up in different cultural situations, that there overall attitude and behavioral attributes would be significantly different. In the end, though, my service learning experience has shown me that these children are just that very thing, children. It was heartening to see that even though these kids come from such a different background, that they were still similar in many ways. Realizing this has helped me to understand my children more adeptly, and has shown me that these children are not so different from the kind of person i was during elementary school.

Service Learning Prompt #2

In my classroom of 12 students, I find myself being the complete minority. All together, i have 1 white student, 5 black students, 1 Asian student, and 6 Latino students. For the most part, the majority of them all speak and are fairly fluent in English, and some of them are able to speak Spanish. The children as a whole seem very well behaved, and every time i have gone so far i have seen very few absences. The children seem engaged in the material of the classroom, albeit with a subtle level of distraction that can be seen among all children of that age. It seems that each and every one of the children can read very well, and because they are among the accelerated group they read aloud together quite perfectly. In many ways, i feel as though I am getting a somewhat biased look at how a classroom in providence would be conducted, simply because i am in a much smaller group of students that are all considered accelerated. The children show an appreciation for learning and obeying rules that i feel could only be truly implemented in a child that has a powerful guiding force that exists outside the classroom. The cooperativeness of the students has helped to show me that many of them probably have a fairly stable family life outside of the classroom, in which rules and obligations are dictated to them by more than just their teacher. On the other hand, however, the other classroom that i attend seems to be in complete opposition to these very ideas. Within the other classroom, which my teacher suggested I look into so as to form a more cohesive experience in public schools, many of the children are found to be loud, obnoxious, and uncooperative. Several times the teacher had to completely stop the class in order to quiet the classroom down. Many of the children do not speak perfect English, and it is obvious that there is no real direction at home or from parents. I find it difficult to understand how one teacher can have only 11 accelerated students, and yet other teachers are forced to deal with 27 students of varying levels of competency.

Service Learning Prompt #1

The school in which I am conducting my service learning project is called George West Elementary School, and it teaches grades K-6. The school is in an area of providence that one might refer to as being "low income". The school itself seems normal enough, albeit with various cosmetic damages that are visible on the outside as well as the inside. To be more specific, for example, many of the exterior windows appear to be boarded up in certain areas, and it seems that the structure of the school seems to be deteriorating. The situation on the interior is slightly better, and the walls are adorned with various colorful images that would seem to be contemporary with a child's school. The space is used the best it could be, i assume. Many of the classrooms are overfilled, having an average of 27 students per classroom, and each room has only one teacher. Much of the time, it seems that the school is just not big enough for all the children, and teachers are commonly overwhelmed by children on a day to day basis. My classroom in particular, however, is nothing like this. My classroom is composed of 12 students and one teacher. These students are placed in a smaller group of children, because they are considered "accelerated", and are ahead of their reading level. My teacher is very good at commanding the attention of the students, and she does so in a relatively calm and gentle manner. Overall, i feel that the teacher does a very good job with her students, and many of the students can be seen enjoying themselves doing the assignments. Additionally, i was able to look in on another classroom that was the literal complete opposite of what my classroom seems to be. The teacher seemed restless, the classroom was disorganized, the students weren't listening, and the class size was more than double. With 27 kids, the teacher had enough trouble with just that. The kids had once been two separate classes, but were brought together because a teacher had quit. Because there were two different classes, the students were on two very different levels of material, and so the class had to be split up into two sections, which only made controlling the class that much more difficult. The values in this school seem to be centered around instilling obedience and establishing control over the students, so as to more successfully teach them the material. The students in my first class are very diligent, and cooperative with the teacher, and i think much of this has to do with the class size. In the other, larger classroom, everything is so much more chaotic and difficult to control. Overall, i am beginning to really like the children I am working with and i am enjoying the real life experience.