Village Project Reflection

At this point you are well into your Village Project experience.  What insights have you gained so far from this opportunity to serve the community and work with children?  How has the experience helped you understand children, teaching, and learning?  What are the best things about the environment you are working to impact the experience of the children?  What are the challenges for the children and the staff working in this program?

The village project from my personal experience has been a brand new challenge that brings a lot of new factors which I have to adapt to for myself and for the betterment of my tutoring. My patience has been very much improved, and my ability in general how to act as a proper teacher for my student. These few tutoring sessions have helped me in more ways than I can already realize. The environment and surroundings I am in really help me discern the question of “Do I want to be a teacher” and I think this program is helping to decide that question relatively fast in a good way. However, there have been plenty of challenges within my sessions and I am focused on helping and solving these to the best of my ability.

For my student, there are very unique circumstances pertaining to his literacy and overall education that differ heavily compared to the other students in his grade and within the after-school tutor program. Through these sessions, I have gained a better understanding of where he is and how to meet where he is. For his grade level, he struggles heavily within the needed goals for his level and he is very behind where needs to be so I need to figure out new strategies on how to adapt to his needs. While it is a real struggle to adapt, I am willing to put as much effort into the betterment of his education because it is really not about me, it is for my student because this education is necessary for his future and the success that he will have. While I have been working with my student I have noticed his interests and his behaviors too which can be used very effectively for his education. So with the help of my mentor, we have developed a new strategy and lesson plan for his learning. One of the ways which I started using as of the last tutor session is the “I say, you say” strategy which causes a lot more involvement and focus where usually he tends to distract himself and also deflect because he does not want to learn. Keeping my student involved and engaged is probably the most important thing for an effective strategy. This especially applies to my student as he likes to wander and also deflects very subliminally from being in a learning setting. One new strategy I will implement in order to adapt to his needs is a card game with letters which now we will play every tutor session. This game will keep him engaged while also measuring his progress with the alphabet and words. These challenges are a good opportunity for me to better my educator qualities and even personal individual traits that can make me a better person.​​ I am willing to take these challenges not for myself but rather for the education of my student and the youth in general. This whole school environment is so great, the teachers really seem to care for their students and are equipped to help inform them on how to approach our students in effective ways to catch them up to grade level. These challenges that the school faces in general is that not everybody is up to their grade level and outside factors effect the learning environment within the school and the progress that these students can achieve. However the growth in this school seems to be very high with the amount of support from us as tutors and especially the staff which are very focused on the growth of each and every student. I really do enjoy my sessions even with all these challenges because it is my job to be equipped to help within this setting. This is already showing in my teaching because I can see progress already with my student and this progress is especially important to him and my ability as a teacher. There has been a plethora of new things and qualities that I have already learned or gained from this program and it will be very beneficial for the many years to come.