Lila's Final Post

Lila Gornick
5/19/15, 3:20 4:20
Boys and Girls Club
Fabiola Kerfoot
fkerfoot@bgcp.org

I tutored at Taft for more than just five weeks and my last day tutoring there was May 19^th.  On my last day at Taft I was instructed to just play with my student instead of tutoring so we could just have fun on our last day together.  This was probably for the best, because my student had an extreme energy level that afternoon and I knew she wouldn’t have been able to focus on reading.  Watching her and her peers wildly seesaw and draw on the board didn’t seem productive to me, and in the beginning I was questioning why I was even there, but then I began to realize that a lot of these kids don’t have anyone to take them to a park or a jungle gym after school to get their energy out before doing their homework, and my presence allowed them to get some of their energy out before they went back to the classroom.   Even though I wished I could’ve dramatically improved my student’s reading capability over the course of the weeks I tutored at Taft, I realized that encouraging her to read and practice reading books in English and giving her one on one attention was just as important as getting the results of better reading.  The experience of tutoring an elementary student after she had a full day of school gave me practice in being patient because by the end of the day the students were usually exhausted and had a hard time concentrating on reading so I had to be patient when she would lose her focus on the book we were reading.

Leslie's Second Post

Leslie Akin
May 23rd, 2015
Ronald McDonald House at Stanford
Monica Makela
MMakela@rmhstanford.org

Sadly, my last visit was completed a week ago. It was sad knowing that was my last visit during the time, but walking out to the parking lot after signing out I smiled and felt like I completed my duty and what they wanted from me there. I knew that was my last visit because I had been there since late November, completing my 6 months needed, and Stanford was about to build a brand new, more than 100-room addition to the space. Every time I pass by the big colorful Ronald McDonald House sign on my way down Sand Hill road, I think about the kids I met there and how my character developed while helping out those kids. The new additional building Stanford is constructing right now recently lead to a bunch of volunteer meetings that were required to attend. During these two hour meetings every weekend for three weeks I learned about communication, especially towards kids, during volunteer hours, advice you should and should not give, and the commitment volunteers must offer. These instructions will stay with me for all my other volunteer jobs through out my life.
To wrap up my last post, the social issues I saw while there I tried my hardest to solve. Families were separated and children felt abandoned and unwanted because their sibling had been in the hospital for so long and got much more attention. Although no kid said that out loud, I could tell by watching the families over a six month span. Children started to get more hostile towards the parents and were not as grateful for what the Ronald McDonald House gives to them; however, while I was there I tried to get their minds off their siblings and get the children to talk to me about their life. As we did crafts and played outside I would remind them how lucky they are to have all this Play-Dough or the three play structures RMH provides for them. I realized these little reminders put the children's perspective back in place and they started to care more for the people working there and the facilities they are given. As I mentioned my preconceptions included that I would be working with only sick children, but in fact I worked 80% of the time with their younger and older siblings. The occasional child who was receiving care at the hospital would come in, and then I would have to carefully talk to the parents about what they can and cannot do. There were some real tough situations where I had to tell a child he or she could not go play baseball outside with the other kids, or could not play chase inside the "castle." I discovered I have a mother hen personality while watching over kids, I was always very cautious and concerned with what was safest and what the child wanted to do, while teaching them important life habits like cleaning up their own mess or saying sorry (kids never say sorry!). I have been babysitting my own cousins the last few months as well, and have certainly seen this mother hen supervisor attitude translate to my care for my own cousins. Lastly, I believe I did have an impact through my service. I relieved kids of their constant thoughts about their siblings and they counted on my to distract them. I had conversations with the parents and felt like I they trusted me to listen to them. I also contributed a lot to the formation of the volunteer meetings by adding my own experiences with tough children or parents who expect me to give advice. Overall, I feel veery accomplished with my work and that I successfully completed making personal relationships with the families there as well as other volunteers.

Kim Second Reflection

Drew Kim

6/26/14 - 6/27/14

Peninsula Bridge

Rolando Victoria

rvictoria@menloschool.org

6/26/14

As I continued to help at Peninsula Bridge, I started to notice a divide between the students in the program. There were those who were truly excited and motivated to learn, and those who didn't want to be there. It showed me how motivation to succeed must come intrinsically - some people are pushed by exterior motives, but that is never as effective as motivation yourself through your own desire to get better. Whatever these kids' motivation was, it was strong, as I could see that they were really pushing themselves to understand the concepts and working hard. I could tell that these were the kids that will go on to achieve great things in their lives, building a better future for themselves then their current situation. It really saddened me to see the kids that were unmotivated, because I could envision the path they would eventually fall on if they didn't change - jobless, living at home, etc. I tried to motivate them in different ways, but like I said, motivation must come from inside oneself. Seeing this divide between the children reminded myself of my experiences in elementary and middle school. I constantly saw kids that were unmotivated and purposeless, and I specifically told myself that I would not want to be like that - I wanted to make a change in the world with the precious life that I have.

6/27/15

The first week of my experience at Peninsula Bridge really helped me understand the issues and causes of under resourced communities. It seems as if the entire system is a vicious cycle - parents were brought up in under privileged circumstances, never learning the necessary skills to succeed, so their children fall into the same path because they don't have adequate resources or parents that can help them and guide them along the right path. Then the same happens to their children and so on. It showed me how we need to attack this problem from the beginning - during the childhood years. If we can guide these children from less fortunate circumstances in the right direction and teach them the necessary skills, we can help alleviate this unfortunate problem. All over the country, kids are following the wrong path, which aids the vicious cycle - and nothing is being done about it. I am only one person, but if people can group together to teach the younger generations the necessary skills to achieve success, we can solve the problem of these under resourced communities. Myself and others like me at Menlo around the country who have been fortunate enough to be born into comfortable lifestyles must use our resources to help the less fortunate in building better lives for themselves.

Kim First Reflection

Drew Kim

6/23/14 - 6/25/14

Peninsula Bridge

Rolando Victoria

rvictoria@menloschool.org

6/23/14

This was the first day I volunteered at the Peninsula Bridge program as a Teaching Assistant and elective teacher. We got to know the kids and get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. As a TA primarily for the Math class, I realized that many kids had subpar arithmetic skills, and that they needed much help to be able to catch up to their grade level. I also realized that for many this was not their fault - it wasn't that they didn't apply themselves, it was that they didn't have the resources that myself and many of us here at Menlo School take for granted. Many of the children wanted to learn, but it was evident that they didn't have access to teachers or resources that would help them achieve this. With a little bit of help, I saw that many of these kids were very smart and could succeed given the right tools. Overall, I saw that, though it may not show in their schoolwork, the kids we were helping at Peninsula Bridge were extremely bright and eager to learn when put in a safe, attentive environment filled with educators who truly cared about their future.

6/24/14

This was the first day that I taught the coding elective at the Peninsula Bridge program at Menlo. This was where I really came to understand exactly how under-resourced these kids were. We set up the 8 kids in our class with laptops, and we assumed that they, like most 6th graders in this digital age, had proficient computer skills. However, all but one did not know how to type properly, and when we asked, we found that one child did not even have a computer at home. This really opened my eyes to the backgrounds that many of these kids came from, and made me a little uncomfortable seeing as we live such comfortable lives and yet there are some people in the Bay Area struggling to get by. Seeing as these kids had very poor computer skills, my partners and I felt obligated to attempt to teach the children basic computer proficiency. In the case of the kids who did have computers, most of them used them to play video games. So, my partners and I also attempted to show the kids the impact a computer could have on one's academic career. We tried to explain the immense aid and opportunities to learn the Internet and computers offer. It was saddening to see that many of these kids were not aware that they could build a better future for themselves if they knew how to utilize the meager resources they had.

6/25/14

Seeing as this was the second of four days of our computer science crash course and many of the children were having a difficult time doing simple operations on the computer, my partners and my patience and sanity were tested. Thankfully, the children picked up on concepts we taught them very quickly. It showed us how even though their socioeconomic status had limited their opportunities to learn, given the right tools, they could succeed amazingly. The reoccurring theme we saw amongst these kids was that they were all extremely bright and eager to learn. They needed to be guided in the right direction, and from there on they could learn and explore on their own. It really satisfied us to teach them one concept and then have them build and expand on it, being creative and exploring ideas on their own. The kids in our coding class really made us proud by showing that they understood what we were teaching them and could utilize it in various applications. Although some were slow to pick up on what we were teaching them, eventually all of them understood and made an effort to learn more. It made us happy to see all the kids so passionate about a subject that we personally love. It really opened up a new perspective to us, where we saw why teachers love what they do. When you are passionate about a subject, there is nothing better than passing along that passion to new generation and have them truly love and explore that certain discipline.

Lila's Third Visit Reflection

Lila Gornick
3/5/15, 3:20 4:20
Boys and Girls Club
Fabiola Kerfoot
fkerfoot@bgcp.org

I am volunteering at Taft Elementary School with the Reading is Freedom program every Tuesday after school for an hour. I as well tutored here last year so I had some ideas about what it would be like going into this year. However, I am tutoring a new student this year, a 3rd grade girl who is at a reading level behind the rest of her class. After my experience last year I expected to be more of a parental figure to a student, trying to encourage her to just start her homework and get through a few problems with me, or one book, instead of being able to intensively tutor her because the student I worked with last year was extremely uncooperative and didn't want to learn. This year my student has pleasantly surprised me, she is willing to cooperate with me sometimes and wants to learn, even though she gets distracted easily. These tutoring experiences have revealed to me that I am a patient person when teaching others. It has also shown me that explaining how to pronounce words and explain simple math concepts are extremely hard and often the student I tutor does not take my suggestions or remember the words I explained to her, so I know that I will need to find a more effective way to explain concepts. I know that I have had an impact on the girl I tutor because she is excited whenever she sees me and she remembered my name the last time I came (my third visit). She has 9 siblings and her teacher informed me that she has confidence issues so I know that I am giving her one on one attention that she needs that she does not receive at school or at home and I believe having more practice reading aloud in English will help build her confidence.

Leslie's First Visit Reflection

Leslie Akin
December 7th, Every Saturday
Ronald McDonald House - Stanford
Monica Makela
mmakela@ronaldhouse.net

Before starting my first visit at the Ronald McDonald House, I had the preconceptions that I would be working with a lot of sick children, with disabilities, and their over protective parents. The issue I am focusing on is creating a home environment for the children and their families. Not only low income families, but families from all over the world visit Stanford Hospital/Lucile Packard Hospital for specific treatments. Some visits are months long, and simply a hotel room would not be reasonable. So, at the Ronald McDonald house we strive to make it as homie and comfortable for all visitors. My work is at the CARE Center, aka the play rooms and outside. My work challenged my preconceptions becuase I worked mostly with the sick children's siblings, most of whom were very shaken up by their families problems. I discovered I am very nervous around sick people, but soon I realized because I had not been very exposed to them I was uncertain what to do. After two visits I had lots of exposure and totally felt comfortable. Although some kids would not be able to respond to me, I would still talk to them. I very much believe I had an impact. I play with the siblings when the parents have to go visit their sick child. I cannot imagine leaving my sick child alone in the hospital, so I have a lot of respect for the parents there. On one girls birthday (I cannot say her name) her parents just dropped her off to me. I realized how upset I would be if that was me. And decided I have to make her birthday special. I may have impacts on the small personal level, but ultimately  I will help a lot of families, and improve the environment's attitude at the house.

Blog Post

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR PACT ENTRIES

In lieu of writing one journal entry per PACT visit, you will write TWO blog entries (approx. 250 words each) about your PACT service work. You will write one entry after you’ve completed your first THREE visits to your site and the other entry after you’ve completed all FIVE visits. Post your entries to your advocacy’s blog so that your peers can see and comment on what you’ve done.

ENTRY CONTENT

1. Do not waste your 250 words describing how you got to the site or listing inconsequential details about every action you performed while there. Give us the information that matters. Analyze what was going on below the surface of your actions or interactions. Keep in mind the social issue(s) you are trying to solve. Surface-level entries will not receive full credit.

2. Consider incorporating answers to the following questions:

• Before beginning your PACT, you probably had preconceptions about your organization, your issue, and/or the population you were going to serve. What were they, and how did your PACT work challenge those preconceptions?
• Did you discover anything about yourself through your service work? Were you at all surprised by your emotional reactions over the course of your service?
• Do you believe you had an impact through your service? If so, what did you accomplish?

ENTRY FORMAT

At the top of each entry, list the following information. Then, skip a space and begin writing.

Your Name

Date and Time of PACT Visit

Organization Name

Supervisor’s Name

Supervisor’s Contact Information