Workshop # 6 – Volunteer Work

Since I was unable to do the Light the Night and UNICEF projects to fulfill my Global-Community Awareness requirement, I was able to volunteer an entire afternoon to student-teach/assist a third-grade class at Fillmore Academy in Brooklyn (P.S. 207). I was very familiar with the school and the teachers who work there, as well as some of the students, since I had done volunteer work there for months when I was in high school. I’ve always liked working with children because they possess the curiosity and ability to explore their own potential without holding back. They’re always willing to take chances on themselves and make mistakes, all while having fun in the process. I was informed that I’d be working with Ms. Ganley and Ms. Ashear and a class of about 25 students. My tasks were to first go around the room during math hour and assist the children with any problems they had questions on. Afterwards, the children were read part of a book in the Reading Corner and given a few questions to answer. In the meantime, Ms. Ganley gave me a stack of quizzes to mark from the day before and a bunch of notices to be sorted into the children’s ‘mailboxes’. Then the children had snack time whilst completing a writing assignment. My job was then to go around and monitor the children to make sure they were getting some ideas onto paper and help them out with sentence structure, grammar, and spelling. Soon, it was time for dismissal. I assisted with getting the children in proper line order, downstairs in an orderly fashion (which is harder than it sounds when you’re dealing with hyper seven-year-olds), and to their parents safely. All in all, I had a fun time assisting with the class. Every time I do volunteer work, I always think that I’m going to wind up being a teacher. The children crack me up with the hilarious things they say and to be able to teach and help someone else gives you the greatest feeling in the world. I truly enjoyed this volunteer experience.