Rachel K. Philanthropy

I've been volunteering at BFD Elementary school for a week now! I've been wanting to blog about the experience there as a volunteer, but I have to be discreet when it comes to using names and stuff. So, BFD Elementary it is!

I got connected with the volunteer coordinator through a website of public schools in King County, which was sent to me by one of the people who organizes the masters in teaching program through the University of Washington. It was a really awesome resource -- I hadn't known that volunteering at an elementary, middle or high school was so easy. Plus, the school that I'm volunteering at was really eager to put me to work! So, I've started a schedule of three hours every day helping two students individually (one with math, one with English) and I shadow and observe two different 5th grade classes after the individual lessons. It has been an invaluable experience to see how public schools in the area function.

I can tell volunteers are paltry at this school. On my first day, they sat me down with a girl from Thailand (let's call her Sue) who speaks almost no English and can barely read or write. Me? Seriously? Sure I've taught English, but I taught it in Japan with an over-structured curriculum and seasoned teachers who could explain all the pains of English away in their own language! I am not qualified nor confident enough in ELL (English language learning) to teach this girl. Sike, j/k -- I'm teaching her anyway. PUBLIC SCHOOL, MOTHERTRUCKERS! So, now Sue's English capabilities have fallen to me, which is ridiculous. On the bright side, she's cheerful and seems to like me enough that she tries to focus on the boring stories in the English learners' booklets. Did you know you can buy pets at a pet store? Life lessons learned. Anyway, I'm bamboozled beyond belief that I have been given so much responsibility for this 5th grader's language abilities, but I've been told that, "if not for you, she'd be getting no attention." Eep.

More befitting of my level of pedagogy, I am helping a ridiculous 4th grade boy (who I shall call Shawn) with his math. Is he bad at math? NOPE -- he's a whiz. He just happens to be a whiz with attention deficit hyperactive disorder, or as its known to its fans, ADHD! I like to imagine that ADHD is like having a carnival in your brain all day. Sure, you could do the math on the page, but THEY'RE PASSING OUT COTTON CANDY BY THE HAUNTED HOUSE! What? I'm supposed to write a definition of a convex polygon? Sure, let me see -- OH BUT WAIT! THEY'RE STARTING UP THE FERRIS WHEEL! Yep.  So, after a week of working with Shawn, I've finally discovered a way to keep him on track (by which I mean keep him from drawing stick figures being blown up, hanged, boiled in acid, decapitated, defenestrated, or mangled by bears in the margins of his workbook). STOP WATCHES. Behold the power of the stopwatch! Every page is a race! A race against TIME! Sure you want to draw stick figures getting their heads bitten off by vampire bats, but THERE'S NO TIME! QUICK! NAME THE POLYGON! FIND THE QUOTIENT! Seriously -- stop watches and candy seem to equate to success: and you won't find that in your math book.

Aside from my two individual human case studies, I get to shadow the rest of the fifth graders in their art classes. Self portraits! It's such a fun class, but I think I'll talk more about it later on. For now, it's date night and I have to straighten the mass of curls that my  hair has morphed into. I blame the rain.