Community Involvment

I'm not very good at math. I used to think I was good at algebra until last semesters algebra class that I completely flopped. But I figured that I would be good, or atleast decent at high school math. Especially when it's easy high school math. Today was really fun tutoring because I worked with the same girl the whole time and she was so sweet. She needed help with math and I couldn't believe how many slips I had with easy math. The girl I was working with just kind of laughed at me because I'm pretty sure she felt like she was tutoring me some of the time. I really enjoyed talking to her. I found out she was older than me which was really interesting to think about tutoring someone older than me. It was cool though because I felt like I could talk to her more normally like she was just one of my friends. We talked about how long she's been in the United States and how much colder it is here than in Somalia. I asked her if she wanted to go back and she said only if there was peace and she was trying to explain to me what was going on in her country and I just felt really bad for her. It must be so hard to come to this new country and become a minority after living in a country that you're used to. She was such a nice girl too. Doing her math problems I felt like we were really working together to get them right. I'd help her with writing the equations from story problems that she was doing and then she would solve them and I would check them. I didn't feel like such a stranger and an outsider today and that's a great feeling.

Posted by Sarah Davy at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On April 11th I worked with the same girl I worked with about a month ago. I was nervous to work with her because last time I worked with her it was really frustrating for both of us because she doesn't understand english very well at all. When I tutor her Mr. Nevin tells me just to listen to her read over her paragraphs for enligsh class and then to read over the questions and the answers to the questions. She has a really hard time reading it and I never know when exactly I should jump in and pronounce the word for her, so sometimes it can be an awkward silence..and I don't like awkward silences. Today was particularily hard because all the paragraphs were about when to dial 9-1-1 and 4-1-1 and she already had the 9-1-1 part done, but not 4-1-1. She did not understand what 4-1-1 was and one of the questions was that she was supposed to write about a time that she used 4-1-1, which is difficult to do if you don't know what it is. The girl that is there everyweek that I talk to and speaks very good english was sitting next to me and trying to interpret for me. It was the coolest thing to watch her go back and forth between languages. It was so interesting and kind of inspired me to work harder at a foriegn language because it's such a useful thing to be able to do. We eventually finished the answer, but it was hard because I'm still not sure if she fully understood what she wrote down as an answer. I really don't like leaving the students confused about something but I really could not understand her at all. I was just really thankful that the other girl was there and so willing to help me!

Posted by Sarah Davy at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 4th was a pretty uneventful day at Lincoln International High School. Days like this it's difficult to sit through the short 2 hours there because it was pretty dead downstairs in the tutor room. I helped two people with the same math assignment. They were both fairly easy and the students understood them pretty easily. The days that seem longer, because there's less stuff going on, I just have to remind myself that's probably nice for the students to just have someone there in case they need help. I know that it's comforting for me to study and work on homework around people who are also doing the same thing because I know that if I need help or just have a small question about something they can help me. So maybe me just being there is enough for some of the students, even though I feel like I'm not doing much. Hopefully next week there will be more people there to tutor so it won't seem as pointless.

Posted by Sarah Davy at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 28th wasn't like every other day at Lincoln International high school because today I didn't work with anyone that I usually work with. Today the boy who I worked with looked to be about my age or just alittle younger. Probably someone who came to the United States older, and therefore had to start high school in a younger grade. He needed help with english homework and math homework. We worked on the english first and he was very good at it so it only took him about 10 minutes. After doing that we started working on math. I found out quickly that he was definitely a procrastinator because he had class in 1 1/2 hours and had to finish up most of the math for that chapter. He was working on it really hard but I could tell that he was getting frustrated with it. He was really friendly and liked to talk to me about my life, where I was going to school and what I was going to school for and stuff like that and he was really fun to talk to. I started asking him about his life and found out that he was from venezuala and worked on cars there and was going to school here so he could work on cars here too. It must have been difficult for him to know that he has to go to school for something that he already knows how to do. I think a lot of students at the school are probably the same way. A lot of them didn't get to go to much school in their home countries so they probably have other working skills from jobs they've had. I'd be really frusterated going to a new country and having to learn a bunch of things over.

Posted by Sarah Davy at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 21st was a normal day at Lincoln International Highschool. Most other days something happens that's interesting or worth noting but today was very uneventful. I worked with the same three students that I usually work with everyweek. They all had the same algebra homework that I had to help them work through. One girl who comes every week is my favorite to talk to! She'll come and sit by me and she has very good english and conversational skills so it's really interesting to talk to her. She's very friendly and seems really interested in why I'm tutoring and what I'm doing at school. A boy that I work with almost every week also needed help this week. He's fun to listen to because he isn't really strong at speaking english, but I can tell that he's getting better every week. That's probably the most rewarding part of tutoring, being able to see students become more and more proficient at enligsh and other skills each week. Some students are strong at enligsh so it's not as easy to notice their progress, but the boy that I work with everyweek does get better every week and it's very interesting to see and easy to notice.
That's the biggest reason why I chose to tutor over other types of community service. When I go tutoring I can see how I'm helping the students. It becomes very rewarding when a student starts understanding something that he/she has had a hard time with for the last couple of weeks. Tutoring is very rewarding and I like it a lot :)

Posted by Sarah Davy at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Most days Mr. Neven, who works with me as a volunteer cordinator, is at the school to offer "support" or to help me with anything I need. This Wednesday he wasn't avalible, and warned me ahead of time that there was a possiblity that he would not be at school somedays in the near future. Everytime he offers support or help I kind of think that it's not needed because all I was doing was tutoring right? If I didn't understand it I'd just tell them and it would be fine? BUT, it was really different without him there, it's comforting to know that there is someone there just in case I have questions or needed help with something. This was suprising to me because I guess that I assumed that I was more comfortable with not understanding things than I thought. Not understand things is kind of scary and makes me nervous because I don't like to be wrong about things. This particular day I had about 4 or 5 people sitting at my table and I was having a hard time helping them all and it made me really nervous. Most of the people there are my age or alittle bit younger, so it's not the same as working with children, which is what I feel most comfortable doing. I thought that day was really important for me to go through because it helped me realize that it's okay to need help and need other people there for support while doing something that isn't in my usual daily routine.

Posted by Sarah Davy at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After being sick last week, this week I was back at Lincoln International High School volunteering once again. Febrauary 28th was one of the busiest days I've been at the high school. Usually I help one person, but that day I was attempting to help two people at a time. At first there was one girl who I was helping with algebra. It was good because I was actually good at algebra in high school so it was easy to help her. After fourth period two students came and needed help. One boy needed help with the same algebra homework assignment as the last girl and the other needed help with her econ homework. I've helped her before and I really like talking to her because she's really friendly and just likes to ask questions about anything and it's really interesting working with her! I've also worked with the boy before so it was easy to help him again. It's great going to volunteer at the same time every week because I get to know the students who are there every week at the same time. It makes the tutoring a lot more comfortable because the students are familiar and they know me already. Hopefully I'll get to work with those same students next week!! =)

Posted by Sarah Davy at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 21st I was sick so I wasn't able to go and volunteer, but the organization was very understanding and hopefully I'll be done with bronchitis by next week =( . I'm really enjoying tutoring. I feel like even though I've only gone for two weeks I've learned a lot. It takes so much patients to teach people. I have to constantly remind myself that it's okay to sit there in silence when they're thinking about the question. At first I'd find myself answering their question for them after only giving them acouple seconds to think about it. Enligsh is so second nature to me since I've been speaking it all my life that it's kind of difficult to comprehend not understanding it. I also have to make sure that I speak more slowly to them and clearly. I naturaly speak quick so I really have to think about talking slowly. I'ts very cool seeing people learn English because I've always been told that it's the most difficult language to learn but I've never whitnessed the progress of people learning English so being able to see it first hand it very interesting. When I'm trying to explain all the grammer rules and exeptions I can see why English would be so difficult to learn. My favorite time I was there was the first time when a boy was telling me about Samali and how different it is here and it was just so cool to see the differences between cultures and talking to someone who is so different from myself really helps me appriciate people's uniqueness.
Hopefully next week I'll be healthy so I can go back and tutor again!! =)

Posted by Sarah Davy at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 14th was my second time volunteering. It was a very different experience than the first time. The first time, the two students I was helping with homework already had a pretty good grasp on what they were doing and just needed my positive reinforcement so they were able to be more confident about their answers. My second time I worked with a girl who wasn’t very strong in speaking English and she had a difficult time understand her assignment. She was supposed to read a story and then predict what was going to happen next. She was having a very hard time understanding the story and didn’t understand the question either. She kept trying to talk to me in her language and I only speak English so it was really difficult. Another girl was there too and she helped me understand what she was frustrated with, but I still had a very difficult time communicating. She would yell at me and I felt bad because I wish that I could have helped her better.
The second girl I helped was working on geometry, but she spoke very good English. The difficult part about helping her was that I have not taken geometry since I was a freshmen in highschool so I needed to review before I could help her. I think she thought that it was amusing that I didn’t understand a lot of it and she did! I ended up being able to understand what she was doing so that was good, but a little bit embarrassing at first!

Posted by Sarah Davy at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My first day of volunteering was Wednesday February 7th. I got there at 11:00 and signed in and went downstairs to where the tutor room is. Right away a girl named Nydia asked for help with her english homework. It was so weird trying to help someone with english because it just all seems very natural just to speak it and not think about it. She had to ask me like words like "shave" meant and it was all just very interesting! I helped her with frequency adverbs, it was kind of amusing because I had to look back in the book to understand exactly what they were since I hadn't taken an english grammer class since middle school. It was interesting talking to her because she seemed so willing to learn this new language and it seemed like she really appriciated my help (which of course makes volunteering a lot easier). The second person I helped also needed help with his english homework. He was doing a work book problem using past, present and future tenses. We were done with his homework early and since it was a lunch hour not many people were downstairs so I was talking to him about where he was from and what was different here. He's from Samalia and he was saying how suprised he was at how cold it was, but that he really likes going to school here and learning at the school. I thought that was very cool to hear that the school was helping people and the students really appriciated it!! I'm excited to go and volunteer again next week!

Posted by Sarah Davy at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Wednesday, January 31st, I went to Lincoln International Highschool in Downtown Minneapolis to meet with the person who is in charge of volunteers at the highschool. His name is Chris Neven and he was very helpful and super nice to work with. I had to fill out paper work about what activities I'm involved in and write down references and so forth. The high school doesn't look like a typical highschool; I found out later from one of my friends who is also tutoring there that it used to be a bank. There's a big safe door downstairs in the basement that leads into a library and it looks very cool. From the outside of the building it's hard to tell that it's a high school. I love it's location though because it's really nice to just have to take to the 16 downtown and then walk 3 blocks to the highschool, it's super convenient compared to the other options I had for volunteering. When I was trying to find where I was supposed to meet with Chris the students were very helpful and welcoming. It helped me feel a lot more comfortable in this environment that I wasn’t used to. I grew up in a town of 26,000, so it wasn’t that big and it’s a predominantly white community. My graduating class had one black person in it and the rest were white so this highschool has very different demographics than my own, obviously. It’ll be interesting to go to the school every week.
I'm very excited to start tutoring. I think it's going to be so interesting to talk to international high school students and learn about them and how they learn English because I've heard that it's very hard language to learn. I'm volunteering every Wednesday from 11-1 and I'm very excited! =)

Posted by Sarah Davy at 7:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There were so many choices for service opportunities with so many different organizations. My first thought was to work at the children's hospital because I work in a daycare at the hospital in my home town, so I already have most of the training and have taken the medical tests needed to work in a hospital. I was, however, turned off by the extensive application process. My other choices were working at the Lincoln International High School in downtown Minneapolis or working at the Elderly Home. Since I really like working with peers or people a little younger than myself I was happy that my choice to work at Lincoln International High School was accepted. I called the director of the volunteers and I have a meeting there on Wednesday, January 31st, so hopefully my volunteer work will start soon after that. I'm looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people and hopefully getting a chance to really make an impact on someone's life. I really enjoy service work when you can actually see the impact you are making. Other things, like handing out fliers, is difficult to do because you don’t see the actual effect of what you’re doing. Service work becomes a lot easier and more rewarding if you see the results as you are going. I think it's so cool that there's a specific high school for international students because I'm sure it's a lot less intimidating for them to go to school if they know that there are other people there who can understand their language and who are struggling with the same obstacles as themselves.

Posted by Sarah Davy at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was very involved with service in the community when I was in high school and since I didn't do any last semester I really missed it; that's why I signed up for this particular English class. Last semester I was going to try and do service work, but my classes became too difficult and I was too busy to do anything. I figured that if I signed up for a class where service was required, it would obviously be more convenient to do service.
When I was in high school, I was involved with many service groups through my school. I was involved in Interact, which was a service club that did things like organizing projects to help people less fortunate during the Holidays and getting the school involved in outside organizations such as the boys and girls club. I was also involved in Retreat Team, a group that traveled to elementary schools and gave retreats, and Girl Scouts, which entailed many aspects of service. In the summer before my junior year of high school I went to Costa Rica for Girl Scouts to learn how to surf, but a big portion of the trip was doing beach clean up and other service activities.
I defined service as helping other people with no expectations of rewards or acknowledgment. Even though there may be rewards, like feeling good about yourself and what you’ve done, there are no material rewards. Service work is a very important part of a community because it can bring a group of people together for a goal, which will make the community stronger.

Posted by Sarah Davy at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)