Volunteering Experience

Hey everyone,

Today I just wanted to talk about how my volunteering at the after school program has been going thus far. I've noticed that the quality of my experience is fully based on the students that you are assigned to tutoring that week. My first week I had an incredibly enjoyable time, now although I don't fully remember the kid's names I remember that I had a fun time with them. The first set of kids were willing to listen to me and had a fun time listening to what I had to say and I hope they learned from it. The second set of kids I had that week were a blast to have, one of the boys was struggling with his math homework. He showed me this fantasy game they play at school that help them with their math skills. The game was a blast, we had a great time playing together and it really made learning math seem more enjoyable. The other boy that was with us had forgotten his homework so I asked him to write me a story that included his favorite things and his least favorite things. He wrote about how much he loved basketball but about how the kids bullied him for being short. It was hard to hear that he was bullied because he seemed like such a happy fun loving kid. I talked with him about it, and my own personal experiences with it and he seemed appreciative with the knowledge. The second week was not nearly as enjoyable for me. The first girl I got just seemed in general uninterested in my help, she slipped her headphones through her jacket sleeve, thinking that I hadn't noticed, and did her work without my help. Although I asked multiple times if she needed any help she refused every time so we just sat there in silence. The second girl that I tutored that night was where my problems really began. She was most likely in first grade and we were working on her spelling and basic math skills. When she would get an answer she would ask me if it was write or not and I would say, "great job you got it right" or I would say, "maybe you should rethink this one". After I would say that she would accuse me of being the reason she had gotten it wrong, even though I hadn't said anything yet, or she would accuse me of calling her stupid. Not even once did I call her anything close to stupid but she would not stop saying it. Towards the end of the evening she screamed that I had hit her, I had not. I honestly was so lost and had absolutely no clue what to do, so I just said it's not nice to say that I did something I didn't and she stopped. So all in all, looking forward to this upcoming week for new kids to tutor I guess.

Love you all,

Cam