My Community Service Experience

I put my 10 hours of community service in at Passaic. My mother is a 2nd grade teacher in the Passaic Public school district. I decided to spend my 10 hours helping out her students. My mother teaches in one of the worst areas of Passaic. Her students are the children from the projects and other low-income housing developments. Her students are at a real disadvantage. I thought that this was a place I could do a lot of good. My mom has been very sick and I have been going to her school twice a week for the past few months to help her out. When I could not find community service at Arts to do she said she could really use my help. I already knew some of her students.

She told me to come to her classroom twice a week after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She wanted me to help her students who were low achieving and at risk of failing. She introduced me to her students as a "reading buddy". Each day I would meet with at least two children and spend twenty minutes with each child. While this was going on my mother would be holding extra help or detention. My mother's classroom is really rather large. All of the desks are in the front of the room. To the back of the room is a reading center. There is a large carpet were kids can sit and read or little tables along the edges. That is usually were I would spend my sessions with her students.

I would sit with the children and have them pick out a book. I would try to get them to read to me. It was usually very hard for them. I would make them read along with me and sound out the words. Sometimes it was hard to get them to keep their attention on the books we were reading. Since my mother always had a lot of other children in the classroom there was always something else going on.

I really enjoyed helping out at my mothers school. I went twice a week for about two months. I grew attached to some of these kids, especially the ones who I seemed to help. I really didn't want to stop going. I am probably going to go back very soon.

My Day At Arts High School

I spent my day at Arts High School on Wednesday, November 28, 2007. When I first talked to my teacher she seemed really nice and I was excited to meet her. I arrived at Arts at about 8:00 am. I met with my teacher and introduced myself. She told me that she only had class for two blocks of the day. She had the first block of the day free. This was her prep period. As she up for the day I decided to observe the physical layout of the classroom.

In her classroom the desks were arranged in groups of four of five. The blackboard was in the front of the room. The teacher's desk was in front corner of the room. The the left wall had three large windows but they were only facing another wall. The student's work was hung up all over the walls. She had a few poster's with inspirational sayings. All of the work on the walls were from current students. The teacher, Ms. Leon, put one folder at each group of desks. Evey group had a different color folder. Ms. Leon told me that each group of desks were a team. There were six teams; yellow, blue, red, green, purple, and orange. The work of the day for each student were in the folders.

The first class Ms. Leon had was block 2. It was her United States History I class. It was composed of juniors and seniors. The students came in talking , laughing, joking, and smiling. When the bell rang students were still walking around talking. Ms Leon said, "The bell rang have a seat". Some students were still up and talking. It took about five minutes to get all of the students in there seats and quiet. They were then instructed to take out there homework from the night before. Ms. Leon went around the room and checked each student's work. About 30-40% of the students did not have their homework completed. While she was doing that the students were told to do the "DO NOW" on the board.

Do Now: What did the found fathers mean when they said "all men are created equal"


Ms. Leon then went over the do now with the class. The students had responses like "all people black or white or man or women" and they were racist they didn't consider black men, men". After that she put a movie on. She was trying to explain the difference between and patriot and a loyalist to the students. The movie was about William Franklin, a loyalist, and Benjamin Franklin, a patriot. Some students stared intently at the television and other were looking away or talking. A couple of students even fell asleep. She only left the movie on for about fifteen minutes. When she turned it off she discussed it with the class. She then told them to go in the folder and take out the question sheet. She gave them time to answer the questions in groups. She gave them about ten minutes to do this. She then tried to get the groups to share their answers with the class. She had a pretty hard time initially getting them to open up but once then did they all had a lot to say.

The next activity Ms. Leon did with the class required the students to decide weather they would have been a patriot, loyalist, or torn. They were told to stand at the the corner of the room which corresponded with their stance. Ms. Leon then went to different students and asked them why they had decided that way. The students went on for a long time and a lot of participation was going on. The bell rang and Ms. Leon gave the assignment and the class rushed out.

Ms. Leon then had her homeroom class come in. They all sat talking with Ms. Leon until the bell rang.

The last class Ms. Leon had of the day was her World History class. This class was composed of freshmen. This class walked in quietly and sat down. The "do now" was on the board and they were instructed to sit down and start on it. She went around the room and checked their homework. The rest of the class time was spent going over the questions and the article they read for homework. They talked about the effects of Indian colonialism. The class was ready to go and done before the bell even rang.

When the day was over I thanked my teacher for having me. She was very helpful to me. She told me I could come back any time I wanted and if I ever needed help she was there. I really did enjoy my day at Arts High School.