Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog. I hope you enjoyed following my journey as I volunteered with the Public Library last semester. I thoroughly enjoyed the process and documenting my journey for you! I also recommend volunteering with this program if you are interested, so feel free to drop any questions I could answer below! Today, I will be reflecting on my action project through my final blog post for this semester, My Metamorphosis.
- What challenges did you overcome throughout this action project? How did you go about overcoming these challenges?
Throughout this action project, I had to overcome multiple challenges, as mentioned in all my blog posts as well. Overall, however, I would agree that forming a strong bond, gaining my buddy’s trust, and helping him build a love for reading were the 3 main challenges I had to successfully overcome. Forming a strong bond with my buddy was not as difficult as it seemed; however, it did take a session or 2 for him to feel comfortable reading and talking to me. This relates to gaining my buddy’s trust, as without gaining that through listening and giving him my full attention, I would have been unable to actually form that connection with him. This also connects to being able to help him build on his love for reading. I was able to overcome this challenge by helping him choose the right books each week with topics that interested him. This led to him reading at his level about topics of interest, which, I would say, led him to continue his passion for reading.
2. How did this action change the way you think?
This action changed the way I think as it broadened my views on how children grow, learn, and discover the world around them. I always heard and believed, it was hard to gain a child’s trust quickly, and for a child to like you, it takes a lot. This action changed the way I thought and approached that thought, as I myself, along with a couple of my friends, had very different experiences in regard to that stereotype. An example of this would be how, during the second week of the reading sessions, my buddy was much more open to talking to me and telling me about his day as compared to the first day of our meeting. I was nervous and scared my buddy would not want to try too be friends because of how I thought it took a while for kids to trust someone; however, this project taught me, for a child to like you and consider you a friend, it is not the amount of time you have known them for but rather the depth of how much effort you want to put into getting to know them better.
3. How did this investigation/action impact your future decisions?
This action impacted my future decisions, as it clearly made me understand that I do want to pursue a career in something related to childcare. I always knew I wanted to work with babies and children but would often debate other fields like adult psychology and adult medicine, but this project made me realize I do want to work with kids as much as I can. It changed my beliefs about me being close minded about focusing on caring for babies (neonatal nursing) and being more open to working with young kids (elementary school) in any way that I can. This action also caused me to want to get out of my comfort zone and look out for more opportunities like those at the rec centres in our area to volunteer with kids programs in the area to gain more experience in the field. I will be looking for those sorts of opportunities during the upcoming spring and summer breaks.
4. What impact will this investigation/action have on others locally and/or globally?
I believe the local impact this action has on the world would be helping parents in the community be able to provide their kids with resources so that they grow up enjoying reading, as that is something not a lot of kids nowadays are into. Programs like the Reading Buddy program offered by the Coquitlam Public Library, contribute to building a sense of community and often have a positive ripple effect as well. This is because, with programs like these, adults come together to help their children develop a passion for reading, which also helps them meet other parents in their position. The reason this could positively impact the community and have a ripple effect is because others would find out about programs like this and show interest in supporting them in any way they could. Examples of how telling my friend who has a sibling in elementary school could have a positive impact would be how my friend could help volunteer at the program and their younger sibling could take part in it. This would help the program continue to grow and impact others in the community as well.