January 2008 Archives

Weekly Project Journal

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

In my project these past two weeks we were fortunate enough to get a globe for our classroom after I had hinted in a previous session that it would be nice to have a globe and so I got to teach the kids some geography. The class consists mostly of kids from Central and South America and so we started with countries like Mexico and Honduras, but to my surprise one of the kids wanted to know where Thailand was because he liked Thai food, so I taught him that and then we looked at Russia, China, and India (big countries that the kids could remember) and of course St. Paul Minnesota. I then proceeded to help one of the girls with her math homework. She had just been introduced to money and I was helping her with her addition and subtraction so that she could count it. I then read some books to the kids. One was about a snowball fight and the other was titled something like Chittie Chittie boom boom and was a way of teaching kids the alphabet by showing all the alphabets climing a coconut tree in order. It was a really interesting experience to teach kids all the things I worked on as a kid. I remember my first introduction to counting money and how tough it was for me initially and as a result it was quite nice to be able to teach other kids to count money. I experienced a real sense of accomplishment helping these kids with such important and rudimentary activities like geography and money.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?
From my project this week I learned how to best communicate with and teach kids the fundamental building blocks of an education and that I am capable of teaching children well, but more importantly I realized how smart these kids really are, they catch on quite quick and therefore the key to ameliorating many the hardships faced by poverty and immigrant marginalization has to be an approach that gives the children of poorer families the same decent education that the children of wealthy parents get because if this can happen then both can excel in school on equal terms and really benefit their lives in the process because a child with a good educational start can often end up with a good finish in a successful career. I also realized the power of being assertive. I suggested that it would be nice if the kids had a globe so that we could teach them geography and sure enough we got one.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I would give myself a B+ this week. I am really happy with the fact that I was able to diversify the learing experience to the benefit of the kids this week. The fact that I was able to help them with counting money and with geography two things I have not worked on with the kids before was great. I am accomplishing the objectives of the project which are to discover more about immigrant marginalization and how to ameliorate this problem by working with children, food drives, and toy drives. I am also trying to maybe pick up work on Mondays so that I can work with the food shelf or the Monday children center. My personal obectives are also being fulfilled. I am really greatful to have the experience of working with poor children in an academic setting. To have the ability to help these kids be on par with the rest of their class members who maybe have better opportunities and better economic situations is truly wonderful and who knows, maybe one of the kids will wind up quite successful in part because of the early education and study habits they learn at Neighborhood House.

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Weekly Project Journal

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

Over the break I engaged in quite a few activities with neighborhood house and I am also posting my first activity from when I started. Three of the four activities I engaged in over break were on site childcare, the forth was toy distribution in a joint collaboration between Neighborhood House and the St. Paul Optimist's Club. In the three on site activities I worked with the kids on homework which consisted of reading and having to fill in the blank with slips of paper that had printed words on them. We also worked on arts and crafts that reflected the time of season it was. I helped the kids make reindeer hats, snowy winter scenes on pieces on paper, paper Snowmen, and more recently random abstract water coloring. At the Optimist's event I got to work with good Samaritans from the Optimist's Club, Neighborhood House, and Best Buy to bring low income parents through a toy distribution center where they were able to pick out gifts, donated from Best Buy and Toys for Tots, for their children depending, of course, on how many children they had. The parents were allowed one major toy per child, 3 stocking stuffers per child, 1 book per child, and 1 stuffed animal per child. The toys were sectioned off by gender and age on different tables. My job was to wear a Santa Claus hat and take the parents through to pick out toys for their kids while holding a bag that they could put their toys in.
I have to say that all my experiences were quite fulfilling. I have never taken part in a toy distribution program and it felt good to be able to provide families with a happy holiday season. It felt even better to know that there were so many business groups, individuals, and private charitable establishments, like toys for tots, take such an active role in helping families enhance their Christmas and all by their own free will. The toys were actually quite good as well until we ran out. The girls got Dora dolls which are quite the hot items among young girls, the boys got soccer balls which are great gifts for Mexican boys (Soccer is really popular in Europe, Mexico, and South America) and from what I could tell these soccer balls were of good quality. There were also Barbie dolls for the girls and stuffed animals and teddy bears for all the kids that I think they would enjoy. The hardest age group to provide for was the 15-18 crowd, because at that point the tastes of individual teens are very divergent from one another. I think in general though there were game consoles for the boys and clothing and accessories for the girls. With this experience I realized for the first time the positive impact that one simple kind hearted deed can have, not just towards those in need, but towards the individuals providing the help. I can think of few experiences more rewarding for pride and self esteem than those that end in the realization that I can make a sizable difference in a few people's lives through one act. This was also true of my first experience at neighborhood house. There I helped kids with their homework, read stories to them, and shared information with them and realized the positive impact that I could have on a child's life and education.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I am slowly learning how to speak to children in a way that best helps them understand their homework and information in general and I am learning the real satisfaction that comes with helping to create a positive impact on the lives of others.
By seeing all the positive change that was made by the collaboration of a few organizations like Toys for Tots, Best Buy, The Optimist's Club, and Neighborhood house, I am learning that immigrant marginalization can be curbed in a real way by the positive initiative of concerned Samaritans despite its being an issue with a long history and a very widespread problem.
I learned that I myself have an ability to make an impact on children who are eager to learn and families who are impoverished and have few presents to give.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I would evaluate my work to be a B+ because I diversified the scope of the project and gained valuable knowledge about what it takes to curb immigrant marginalization as well as about my own ability to effect change. As a result I am accomplishing both my personal objectives of helping curb immigrant marginalization and helping people succeed while helping myself in the process and I am accomplishing my regular objectives of understanding immigrant marginalization.

Weekly Project Journal

Each week of the project, student must submit a project journal entry. The journal entry consists of three parts:

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?
This week in my project I helped a little six year old girl learn how to read a book, write a book report, and write words that rhyme with other words, it was all part of her homework assignment and we also worked on penmanship.
After that, I read the children two stories both quite the opposite of each other. One story essentially was about two African children chasing after lions on the Savannah and the other was about Antarctica and the North Pole. The first book was pure entertainment, but the kids did learn to associate Africa with lions and the Savannah. The second book however, was quite educational (Even I picked up a few things). It basically told the story of the ecosystem in these regions. The kids learned what krill are and how they get eaten by whales and seals and how Baleen whales have baleen which are sieve like structures where they are able to separate the water from their food I.E. the Krill and Seaweed. I think with this week I gained my first real teaching experience. This was the first time I was ever able to teach a child something of large impact.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?
One of the most astonishing things I learned this week is how truly intelligent six year olds can be. Their minds are almost like sponges, they remember everything a person tells them. There was one point at which I was teaching this six year old girl grammar and I thought what I was saying at the moment was a bit over her head, but I said it anyway just in case it might help and to my astonishment she comprehended what I was saying. The specific grammatical principle I was teaching her started with the differences between the three forms of there which moved towards a discussion on to the nature of contractions which she learned quite well. We then talked about conjunctions and why people only capitalize certain words in a book title. She took all this in quite well.
I learned that when it comes to immigrant marginalization, sometimes the most important thing is education. If people can channel immigrant children's thirst for knowledge and end up producing something meaningful, great things can happen. I have learned that education is probably the most practical way to help immigrants integrate into society. If the children of immigrants can get a college education and a well paying job in the future there will be nothing holding them back from supporting themselves and their families.
The primary thing I learned about myself is that I am not as bad a teacher as I thought.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?
I would evaluate my work positively this week: B+. I left my Wednesday night session with a real sense of accomplishment. I felt that I really helped someone that day.
It is so fulfilling to realize the impact that it is possible to have on children and every day that they learn a good habit is one day closer to a great future. Therefore as far as my personal objective goes, I am really happy to see these kids doing well and making progress.
As far as my project objective is concerned, that is going well too. I am learning a lot about the impact educational opportunities can have on the poor and the marginalized and about the degree to which education can curb marginalization.