Bailey Gatzert Service Learning

Final Post

2011-12-08T03:25:00.002-08:00

What was the most memorable moment/event/day of your service-learning experience? Why?

In Mrs. Lam's class there was a boy who always gave his tutor so much trouble during brain train. I always saw him crying and refusing to do the assigned exercises the tutor gave him. Since he knew me as Mrs. Lam's helper in class I wanted to see how he would respond to me as his tutor brain train. I asked him to be assigned to me and that was probably the smoothest day of tutoring I had. I was able to keep him on task with minimal difficulty. When we completed a page of work we'd take a break by reading a few pages from a Dr. Suess book. It was nice to see the boy so happy to learn.

Has your service-learning experience changed your perspective of education/learning/discourse? How so?

I've experienced similar things with education and learning in the past by tutoring kids so my perspective was only reaffirmed by my time at Bailey Gatzert. This time though I was able to put words to my perspective from what I've learned in class. This has helped me better organize my thoughts on education and learning. The things I learned in class also helped me realize clearly why there is such a high correlation between education and poverty.

What was the most challenging aspect of your service-learning experience?

The most challenging aspect of my experience was trying to keep the kids from getting distracted and having them respect you as a tutor. Tutoring 1st graders was much more difficult than I had imagined because of their high amounts of energy. I remember maybe 3 of the 4 kids I tutored in brain train continually insisted that they examine my glasses while trying to get them to work. Also it was hard to get them to motivated to work as well. Whenever met with a difficult problem the kids I tutored often would find any excuse to skip it.

How has your service-learning experience affected your view of SU’s mission, particularly in terms of social justice?

I feel that SUYI is a very important aspect in materializing SU's mission. Tutoring may seem like a small task but its small tasks like these that help make the "safety net" that SUYI has designed for the surrounding neighborhood. I am glad to see the Jesuit aspect of this school in action in the spirit of the idea of "men and women for others".

Final Post

2011-12-08T03:25:00.000-08:00

How has your service-learning experience affected your view of SU’s mission, particularly in terms of social justice?

Week 5

2011-11-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday in Ms. Lam's class the children had to write what they were thankful for in the spirit Thanksgiving. Along with that they had to make a taxonomy of things related to scarecrows. When they were done each child was given a book to take home. I noticed that some of the kids haven't even realized that I'd been tutoring them regularly every Thursday for more than a month now. Everything happened as usual that day.

In brain train I was assigned a child from Ms. Lam's class. He has had a reputation of a "difficult child". From what I was told many of the adults were afraid to deal with him because of his lack of respect for authority, with Ms. Lam being the exception. She really has perfected the art of demanding respect from children, something I'm in the process of learning. Well anyways I've seen this kid with another tutor in my group and often felt sad for the trouble he caused my fellow co-worker. Even though, I wanted to tutor him even before I knew that I was going to be assigned to him because I felt that my image as Ms. Lams' helper might discourage him from his usual behavior. When I sat next to him he was happy to see that I was his tutor. From then on I felt like that was the smoothest brain train session yet. I tried to apply a stern voice when needed and encouragement when the boy was doing a good job. He honestly is very bright and just likes to play dumb. When I did encourage him I was very happy to see that he was very proud of his work. I felt proud of him too seeing him like that.

Update Week 4

2011-11-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Ms. Lam's 1st grade class, like usual, is quite easy to handle compared to my 1-on-1 sessions with the brain train. Watching her teach the children makes it quite evident that she has developed skills that allow her to handle her class efficiently... skills that I am currently lacking. In brain train I've been switch between kids a lot more than expected. I've tutored 4 different kids now and 3/4 of them were quite difficult to keep focused. On a positive note though, the difficult children were quite intelligent. It seems that they just are unmotivated to do work, which is expected from 1st graders. Last session the girl I normally tutor has grown some feelings of resentment towards me. I was reassigned to another boy, who seems to be an African immigrant. I say this because I noticed he has an accent. His initial response to me was much better than the previous girl. Still, it was hard to keep him focused for long. Eventually my mind was feeling the strain of constantly trying to keep my kid staying on task. After class Ms. Lam gave me some tips on how to gain the children's respect. She said to really utilize your angry voice and angry facial expressions. I think it'll take getting used to, but I'll try this upcoming Thursday.

Update

2011-10-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

I just recently finished my 3rd visit to Bailey Gatzert. I'm starting to get the hang of things now and I'm not getting lost anymore finding the classroom I'm suppose to be in. The kids in Ms. Lams class are now familiar with me now. A new girl joined the class recently. She came from South Africa and is albino. She's also legally blind. Though she seems to navigate through the class room pretty effortlessly. She seems to be integrating in to the class well.

My experience from brain train has been quite different from my experience helping the children from Ms. Lam's class. I was told to be extra stern with the kid I usually tutor because she has the tendency to be difficult when it comes to authority. I found out quickly that she was quite smart even though she did have a hard time keeping focused. One day when it came time read she started throwing a fit and kept saying she wanted to go home. I tried to get her to read but she kept insisting that she wanted to color. Then I tried to bargain with her saying that if she read half the page I'd let her color, but that still didn't work. Eventually one of the other SU students in charge of the classroom stepped in and saw that giving in was the only way to calm her down. I think because of this the girl I tutor has some resentment towards me.

1st Day

2011-10-17T12:00:00.001-07:00

I had my first day at Bailey Gatzert on Thursday. Walking into the school for the first time I initially thought how ethnically diverse the student body was. The teacher I was to assist Ms. Lam greeted me and introduced me to her 1^st grade class. A majority of them were of East African descent. Many of children seemed to work when told to with some getting distracted occasionally, but Ms. Lam seemed to be quite effective at getting the kids to work on what needed to get done. That day the children were to cut out pictures depicting objects that either started with a “th” or “wh” noise and categorized them accordingly. Many were able to do it without too much difficulty. The challenge for most of the kids was to make a 3^rd category of their choice such as picking pictures that had wheels with them or pictures that showed plants. This exercise accurately depicted the need to stimulate ways of divergent thinking amongst children in order to retain that ability. I had helped one boy make his 3^rd category. He grouped together a wheel and a wheel barrow. The teacher used his work as an example, from which there on I saw many of the students had simply copied. I tried to get them to see the ways they could have categorized them but many were not able to make the connections without being pointed in the right direction. I have never worked with kids as young as 1^st graders so this is definitely an interesting experience. I did choose this age group knowing that making an impact early in a child’s life is where everything else builds upon. So I guess last summer’s reading of “Whatever it Takes” highly influenced my decision. Having experience in tutoring middle schoolers that had the same reading ability as these 1^st graders in Duroville was very disheartening. I would hope that the efforts of the SUYI would prevent that from happening to these kids.

Bailey Gatzert Info

2011-10-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Bailey Gatzert Elementary is located on the edge of the Central District. The population for the neighborhood with the zip code of 98122 is 18139. The neighborhoods racial demographics consists of 53.1% White, 31.4% Black, 5.9% Asian. The average houshold income is $117,738 for the Central District. Bailey Gatzert has a student body of 303 Students. 92% of all students are being provided with free/reduced lunch. There are also resources that are provided for homeless students and transitional-housing students. Bailey Gatzert has been called by the media as an “emotional oasis in an otherwise troubled landscape” and much attention has been given to help the students stay on track with their education. Seattle University’s Youth Initiative has been the center for this effort providing $1,000,000.00 a year to the elementary school