I enjoy greatly working with younger children but, this type of service learning was different. Mercedes and I had the task to work with a student that would greatly benefit from this service learning. We as mentors had to help, inform and encourage our student through a variety of activities so he would have a clear idea of what path to take to become the career he was aspiring to be. Our student was fifth grader, Shelden. When we had to meet him, I will admit that I was nervous because I did not know what to expect. As soon as I saw him I knew we would have a great time and also learn many things from each other! I was extremely excited to have had engage in this t
Our first activity was to complete a Dream Collage of all the careers he wanted to become. We took a couple of magazines to the YMCA, and explained to Shelden what he had to do. Throughout the time of completing this activity we had many laughs and Shelden seemed like he was really enjoying the activity. This was a great start! At the end of the activity we had a poster paper filled with pictures, and each and every one of them represented an interest that Shelden had. The three top career choices that Shelden had were police officer, lawyer, and a millionaire. Time flew by and I had a blast! And, I was really looking forward to our next meeting.
Before going to our second meeting, Mercedes and I had to put a PowerPoint together and research the top three careers that Shelden had chosen. We really put all our effort to make it educating and also fun. We presented to Shelden the main points of each career. It was very satisfying to see him enjoy it but, also that he learned some new things. I felt that after we left that day, he had a better understanding of each of his dream careers.
Our third meeting was all about writing an essay together. Up front I knew that it was going to be a challenge to get a ten year old boy to cooperate with writing a one page essay. At first we were struggling to help him focus on the paper and not on other distractions. This time, Maria had offer us to take some kind of treat to our student. We took ours a pack of Starburst, he loved it. It made him get the extra energy he needed to write this essay. We helped him all the way with his essay and we read it together, we were all satisfied with it and that was what we were aiming for.
Finally, our last assignment was to complete an action plan that our student would be able to follow. We the scholars also had the same assignment. I think it was unique that our student and us had the same thing to do. We worked on ours together. We tried to keep it simple but at the same time express the main points. After all our student was only ten years old.
This service learning component was very fun. It was a great feeling because we were serving our community. And, it also reflected in a way what Maria Garza was doing for all the scholars in College 101. I would love to repeat the same experience any other time. I believe that we really made a difference in Shelden's life. Hopefully after the service learning he will feel more knowledgeable and have a head start in his future.
