Service Learning

    Last Friday was my first day of Service Learning for my TE 250 class.  Service Learning is a program where I get to go to a local Lansing school and work one on one with students.  I was excited to actually be working in a classroom and not just talking about it like we do in class.  I was placed in a 6th grade classroom at Mt. Hope.  At Mt. Hope, fridays are days when the 6th graders get to do "stations."  In their "stations" they rotate between three different classrooms and teachers.  In the classroom where I was placed, the teacher only taught math, so I got to hear the same lesson 3 different times.  This helped me to really understand what the kids were learning and by the end of my time there, I knew I had the ability to help these kids with that lesson.  Unfortunately, I only get to stay there for 2 hours, so by the time the lesson was taught, there wasn't much time for me to help the students.  This week will hopefully be a time for me to work with individual students who need extra help.  

    This program is very rewarding.  Mt. Hope is an urban school, so it's very diverse and not in the best part of town.  My goal is to make these kids more excited about learning and more excited about school.  I believe this program will also make me a better teacher down the road.  Having these experiences in actual schools and not just learning about it in reading we discuss in class, will make me more credible down the road.