Theories on Education; Volunteer Mentoring

I have to do community service for my speech class and I decided to volunteer at a partnering school mentoring kids’ grades k-12. Today was my first day and I’ll just say it was really interesting. The school is in Brooklyn, apparently it’s an underprivileged school, but I don’t see how that’s true if it’s a private school and the kids have to pay tuition. Plus it’s like sponsored by my college which clearly has bread. But anyway, I’m thinkin’ we go in there and color or play games with some kindergarten kids and have a fun time, because you know kids’ say the darndest things. Lol. But it wasn’t exactly like that. The kids are about 13, in the 8th grade and pretty grown to say the least. The two girls and I talked about school and their grades, about places they’ve been, things they’re looking forward to and high school.

So apparently in New York you have to apply to high schools. There are high schools for performing arts, communications, science and all that. So both of the girls I was talking to wanted to apply for the performing arts high school. They’re talking about taking this test that’s going on their records for high school, blah blah. Then we talked about their classes now. And they were telling me how much they hate the private school they’re at now. I asked them why and they said because its ‘dead’ (their words not mine). I ask ‘em how its dead and they say because the classes are boring, there’s nothing for them to do, they don't have recess, they said the teachers aren’t bad they’re just not learning anything they find interesting. So I ask ‘em if they have music classes or foreign language classes and they didn’t. The only class they had other than the basics was gym. Now I remember middle school; and all through my middle school experience I was taking some kind of elective. I took French one year, band, tech ed., and gym another year, not to mention the host of after-school activities that my school sponsored. Basically, I had a full, well-rounded middle school experience and I felt prepared for high school. My middle school was public, and therefore state sponsored, but I don’t think that being a private school excuses the school from having events to keep the kids interested in coming to school. I mean if they’re not interested they’re not gonna do well regardless. And if someone at the school sees a need for whatever the kids need to succeed, and really wants it done I fully believe that they can do it.

What they said about school was so depressing. I asked them how their grades were and one of the girls said “I’m average”. I asked her what that meant and she shrugged, and said “I don’t do bad but I’m not that good”. I started asking her about her study habits and she was honest in telling me that she didn’t study that much. I asked her why not and she said because it was boring. Okay, true, we don’t spend time on things that aren’t interesting. So then I’m thinking about my criminal justice professor and how he said education was an important factor in middle class families so I start wondering if her parents encourage education and such, basically going off on tangents.

We talked about the places they’ve been next. Both of them have been out of the country once whereas I never have. So I’m like woah. And of course that got me thinking about how much I don’t know and how big the world is and how much I really have to learn and open myself up to. After that I’m thinking man these kids are already exposed to so much. They were talking about some party that the school throws for the kids and how there’s dancing and it gets ‘crazy’. I’m askin’ em what ‘crazy’ means and they won’t tell me, they just look at each other and laugh. You can assume for yourself what that means. I mean at that age yeah I guess I was doing stuff I shouldn’t too, but its different when you look at somebody else’s baby doing it.

So the problem I see is that no one sees the need, or no one really wants it done for the school. And that’s basically the point of this blog. There is a big lack of teachers who are REALLY concerned about the students and REALLY want them to succeed. I feel like a lot of teachers just happened into the career, and teaching should definitely be a passion. i’ve really been thinking about becoming a teacher but I’m just not sure if I want to try to support a family off what they make.

Regardless this experience was touching as hell. I will definitely be volunteering at that site on the regular.