Tomorrow is our Last day in Woodland.

Tomorrow is our last day working with the Woodland Joint Unified School District. Overall my project in Woodland, Ca was relatively successful. I tutored a number of students and connected with people that I wouldn't have been able to meet otherwise. I also learned more about the education system and have a more solid foundation of what I want to do with my life. I can see a need for the non-profit that I want to start. I have increased my respect for teachers but I have decided that it's not a good profession for me personally. It is amazing what teachers have to put up with. I'm happy I was allowed a brief into the education system, and I'm even happier that it was only two months long.

I look forward to building houses in Mecca, Ca and I'm so stoked that I was chosen to be the person who gets to work in the Community Center for half the day everyday. I was picked because I was the most vocal about wanting the position, but still. It will be cool to get to work hard in the morning building houses and play hard in the afternoon with kids that range from 5-18. I was fortunate enough to be able to work on a house with Habitat for Humanity this past weekend. We framed the side of a house and me and Syd the Kid (a really awesome girl on my team), cut 179 pieces of wood. I was sore this whole week from the experience but it felt good. The great thing about building is that it’s a lot easier to measure your progress. It’s much more difficult measuring your progress in the educational system.

We’re getting kicked out so I have to go but maybe I’ll finish this tomorrow night.

The beginning of the last week in Woodland!

All right, I admit it. I'm a slacker. I'm not very good at keeping up with blogging more than once a week. It's unfortunate for me. The whole point of keeping up with this thing is so that I could look back on it and reflect on my experiences. I guess, I just have to push for this once a week business and hope that at some point my motivation to share my experience will improve.

It's hard to put this experience into words, though. I could say to you that I worked with students today in English and I taught them how to correctly cite information in an essay, but it’s likely that tomorrow those students will have forgotten how to do it. It's so hard to measure success in this program, especially when working in education. Student's grades and motivation don't improve over night, so frustration builds as students continue to make similar mistakes over time. I have to write a reflection for each round. I have posted it here:

I was probably the most excited person on Blue 4 to tutor and mentor high school students in Woodland, Ca. At the end of the project, I’m not sure that I feel the same. I had overly optimistic expectations of what the project would be like. I had envisioned myself being the Mr. Holland’s Opus kind of tutor, making a life changing impact for my students during our short time in Woodland. Looking back, I wish I wouldn’t have created grandiose expectations. I had such great anticipation for working in education that I hadn’t accounted for the possibility of apathy amongst the students. After spending an entire month with people who had come to Sacramento in order to make a difference, it was difficult to start working with students whose greatest aspiration in life was to be a street pharmacist. In the end the overall project was worthwhile as I learned a few things about myself: I don’t want to be a teacher, I only like working with kids in fun and creative environments, and there is an inherent need to create the nonprofit I wish to start.

I arrived at Woodland and was bombarded with training. As overwhelming as it was trying to keep straight the standards for essays, the proper logging method and the rest of the rules of the learning center, I managed to quickly catch on to the way the center worked. It was difficult to balance giving away the answer and teaching the student how to write, or complete math problems; I spent much of my day frustrated and annoyed. But then I would have breakthroughs. Students would remember to cite things correctly or turn a negative exponent into a fraction. Those were the moments that I really loved tutoring. The “ah-ha” moments, these moments were inconsistent and infrequent but when they happened they could erase weeks of ill feelings towards an apathetic student. I am not Mr. Holland, but I did make an impact, however small it may be. I measured my impact by the small number of students who came by to say hi to me, who started to do more work with my mere presence, and how many seemed upset that I was leaving. It wasn’t a substantial number by any means, but it was nice to have a few students who wanted me around.

Maybe next weeks post will have more information? You can only hope.

New Project and more reflection

So, I’ve been writing letters lately. Lots of letters, letters to myself, letters to friends, letters to family, letters to people, letters galore. The unfortunate thing with writing letters is that I end up not writing blogs. I justify slacking off on this blog with letter writing, because it’s “still writing”. Anyway here is an update:

My team found out our next project, we’re going to Mecca, Ca to build houses with the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition: http://www.cvhc.org. I’m looking forward to the change of pace and scenery. Mecca is a census-designated place (CDP), which means it’s too small to have a government of any kind but it’s populated enough that it has to have a name for census purposes. My team has taken to Google mapping Mecca and scoping out the town on street level. There isn’t much to the lay out of Mecca. There is a post office, a school and Sports Center. I’m excited to spend two months in a town of that size. It will definitely be a new experience.

A lot of what happens in AmeriCorps NCCC is hard to explain. Everything happens really fast and situations change so frequently it’s hard to keep up. Often times I begin to tell someone a story only to realize that the previous week I had a completely different attitude about the subject. It is sometimes jarring to be in this kind of atmosphere. But it is rewarding overall. I know in the end I will be a very flexible person. It’s hard not to go through a program like this, and not come out a changed person. I am interested in seeing the end results, but the overall process is jarring and often emotionally draining. Because we live and work so closely with each other it is hard not to get annoyed, or be excited about hanging out with each other. The problem is that everyone is on different schedules. I could be cool with one of the members on my team, but they could be upset with me or vice versa. Then there is the whole outside factor. We are often excluded from our home lives, but when we are included it’s usually for big events. Unfortunately, this past weekend a lot of people got a lot of big news, and none of it was good. These kind of scenarios play on me emotionally. I am holding up, better now than earlier this week, but this is the kind of stuff that sucks about a program like this. It’s hard to have to work long hours 5-7 days a week when you are physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Fortunately, I have the fortitude to withstand these types of blows.

It’s Midnight and I have work tomorrow. Only 7 days left of school, and I have a habitat build on Saturday so that’s good news.

Take care,

Sara

First week back, sort of...

Break is over and my team has returned. We’re back at work, but not in Woodland. This week we worked at the H1N1 Clinic. I thought it would be more difficult for me because I don’t personally agree with vaccinating for every new disease. I didn’t have to try and explain to people why they should be vaccinated; instead I worked at the end of the line after they already made the decision. I’ve met a lot of really cool volunteers including this woman who conquered cancer. She is so fascinating, she’s been alive since World War II, and she talked with me about different points of California history. I was really happy to have met her. We only have two more days of the clinic, which is pretty exciting.

Next week we will be back at Woodland, and we only have 3 weeks left. I’m excited to find out what our next project will be. We will be moving out of Sacramento, and I’m hoping for a more exotic location, but who knows. I’m pretty sure we won’t be going to Alaska or Hawaii, but I am confident that we will at least be getting out of California, but for I all I know we could be in Woodland for another 2 months. There is nothing I can do to change what we do, and I can’t switch teams. So if I don’t like the next project I’ll just have to be flexible, keep a positive attitude regardless.

I am hoping to update more in the New Year as part of my healthy in 2010 campaign. Writing is a healthy outlet for me. So starting this week, I’m going to write three times a week. I can’t promise that I’ll post 3 times a week, but I’ll do my best especially while I have Internet access. I have PT at 5:30am tomorrow and it’s late so I should go to bed.

Sorry for the poor updates,

Sara