Competencies:
More information on the ASB program |
ALTERNATIVE sPRING bREAK: TOPPENISH, WA From the support and encouragement from my co-workers at UAA Advising, I decided to apply to be a participant for the Pipeline Project. Along with four other UW students, we traveled to Toppenish, WA where we worked with about 120 elementary and 25 middle school students to empower them to write their stories and create books. We served at Kirkwood elementary where over 98% of the students are on free/reduced lunch, 68% Hispanic and 29% Native American.
I stepped into my leadership role when we were dividing up teaching days and I took on Wednesday, book making day. I decided to volunteer for this day because I wanted to know what it would be like to instruct an entire classroom of 10 year olds through completion of a challenging, multi-step task. Due to the organization of the project, we had 4 different groups of students rotating throughout our classroom during the day. I had the opportunity to teach my lesson 4 different times that day, changing and altering my approach to fit the needs and learning styles of each individual group. I got first hand experience of the challenges that teachers face. I struggled with challenging the students who were quick learners and waiting with their finished products while avoiding leaving the students who needed more help behind. This experience wouldn't have been half as great without the incredible support and connection that I had with my team. The five of us UW volunteers started out as complete strangers, and we came back home best friends. I realized in the process that my first impressions of some individuals were completely false. I reminded myself that everyone has a story, and that we all are an accumulation of our experiences that are projected in different ways. I learned more about these four individuals in six days than I know about some of my oldest friends. We spent our afternoons exploring, napping and reading our kids’ papers. We spent our evenings cooking together and having deep conversations about the complexities of life. We all asked each other honest questions and really listened to one another. It was the first time where I felt so supported and comfortable within a group. The diversity that existed between the five of us leaders, helped us support each other as we faced the diversity in the classroom. We talked with one another about our past experience, knowledge and feelings of transitioning from majority to minority groups to help one another connect and relate with situations of the students that we were working with. |