Hey! Unfortunately, this is the final blog post that I will write concerning my volunteering project that I had started with my friend, Vicky, in our very first semester. Though we are sad that it’s coming to it’s final close, we also acknowledge that this a great opportunity to reflect on what we had done!
Struggles and challenges can be extremely difficult to overcome in some instances, because they are, of course, difficult and challenging. So, it’s important to learn ways to overcome struggles so that we can overcome them with greater ease next time. From this experience, both Vicky and I had experienced many different struggles. These challenges varied from things like; leadership, teaching, focus, communication, understanding, and even a few more. Personally, in the beginning, I had only a few experiences teaching, coaching and interacting with younger kids, so I found that taking leadership of a group of younger students was intimidating and difficult to master from day one. But, as I continued to observe others, like teachers, and as I kept on trying my best, I definitely felt much more at ease with a group of students. I was able to actually feel comfortable teaching, explaining and just socializing with some of the students.
Two other quite prominent difficulties were definitely focus and communication. With the younger students it was hard to perform tasks in the classroom when they lost focus so easily, so I had to find some ways to keep and gain concentration from the kids. I had learnt a few different ways to do this from teachers and even a very kind substitute that taught the class one day. Finding that things like repetition, clear instructions, and simple instructions, even distraction, were key. I had to try different things with different kids, sometimes they just needed reminders to stay on task, and other times, they needed something more engaging, like a joke or change of activity.
Something that kind of crosses over with the idea of focus was communication. Sometimes, I found it hard to know exactly how and what I should say so that the students definitely understood me, I didn’t want to sound too overly complicated. So, with some time, and trial and error, I found out roughly what the student’s vocabularies were, and I was able to be on the same page. Things like giving instructions often worked best when they were one step at a time and very clear.
Similarly to what I had previously mentioned, this project taught me many things and was overall a great experience to practice and improve certain skills as well. I have definitely changed the way I think about collaboration and leadership. I’ve gained a lot of confidence from this project, I used to often be rather shy or hesitant to try things that I was not good at, but I really loved this experience because I got to improve, and now I think that my abilities of leading a group, speaking publicly, and setting examples are so much stronger.
Moreover, I will not forget about this project in the future. I’m not sure as to what I might pursue as a career, but I do feel incredibly impacted my my action this semester. So, even if I don’t become a teacher, I do believe that this may impact my future in some ways. Now, I could think about what I really enjoyed from this opportunity and I could think of careers to pursue off the qualities I liked. Or, for a closer future, I think that I may even consider looking into jobs that can involve leadership, or even jobs that revolve around kids and adolescents, like a coach, for example.
At the moment, I don’t think that my action has had a global impact, but rather a local one. While, it would be incredibly rewarding to create a global impact, I find that I still feel an equal euphoria from this project. Specifically, my project has greatly impacted me, and the Ranch Park Elementary school.
Though I have not had a chance to visit the students again, I do truly hope that they had a fun experience with me in the classroom, and that they possibly remember some of the things I tried to teach. My partner and Is contributions often helped the teachers by helping take a few things off their long to-do lists, we had also often interacted with staff, and I really enjoyed being able to build and have positive interactions and connections with others.
