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.
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