The Village Project was a way to get inspiring teachers, like myself, out into a classroom. It was a way for us to interact with students, learn skills, and to be able to dip our toes into what working with kids will be like. I had the experience of working the after-school program where I went to a school Mondays and Wednesdays fro 2 hours. I did after-school activities with the students. There were many takeaways from this experience but the ten big ideas that I took away from this experience is:
- Accountability- Throughout this experience, accountability was a huge skill that was needed. You not only needed to hold yourself accountable for being present at all of the sessions but also help hold the rest of your group accountable.
- Don’t bring negative things that happened earlier in your day to the sessions- There were times when I may have been stressed about something earlier in the day, or something negative happened to me. But I learned quickly that you can’t take those negative things to the after-school program. This is because the students do not deserve that, and they also have things going in their lives; so more negativity will just make things worse.
- Going along with number 2, you never know what someone is going through- it is important to be accepting, listen and care for each student (as well as the people you work with) because you never know what could have happened earlier in their day.
- Patience- This is a huge skill that is needed, especially when working with younger-aged students. First graders have a hard time listening (we all know this), so when working with those students you are going to need to repeat yourself quit a bit. This can get very annoying after awhile, but controlling your emotions, staying patient and understanding repeating yourself is something you will need to do with this age group is important.
- Flexibility/adaptivity- At my school in the fall semester, there was a fewer number of YMCA workers. This made larger amounts of students in each group. As a volunteer and worker, we had to adapt and be flexible with that. Another example was in the spring semester, I was moved into a different age group. I had to adapt to a new age-range of students. I had to learn all new students’ names and learn each students personality.
- Get to know your students- I think that creating a connection with your students is important. Each student is different and have different things they are going through. Understanding that and even relating to them or helping them is very important. I think you are also going to make a bigger impact on those who you connect with. They will remember you and how you have impact their lives.
- Organization/prioritizing- This experience has helped me stay organized and prioritize my time. I had to organize my school, softball, homework and other life stuff around the village project. This has taught me how to juggle everything in my life and still be present at all of my sessions.
- Coming up with stuff on the fly- There were times during the after-school sessions where my leader and I have went through everything in the lesson plan and have to come up with something to keep students engaged. We never want the students to just be sitting around, so as the leaders we have to come up with certain things on the fly so that students are engaged.
- Ignoring things that aren’t very important- There were times when students would come up to me and tell me things that really aren’t important or don’t really need my help. We all know that elementary students taddle on others just because, but it really isn’t that big of a deal. That would an example of when I would say “ok thank you for telling me” but really not do anything about it. Know when to intervene and when to not.
- Being prepared for anything and everything- When working with students, anything can happen. This means that you need to be prepared for anything and not be thrown off when something happens. Instead, be able to stay calm, think quickly and act on whatever happens.
