Village Project Reflection

At this point you are well into your Village Project experience:

What is the Village Project? The Village Project is an opportunity for first year college students, particularly those in an education major, to go out into their communities and serve low-income students at different elementary schools. There are three routes to take with the Village Project: tutoring, volunteering, and the YMCA after school program. What I chose for my Village Project is working for the YMCA after school program. The after school program the Y offers is very structured. There’s a meal, then outside time, then academic time, and some clubs. Clubs are more opportunities for them to learn and switch every month or so. Last month I was teaching around 10-13 kids renaissance art and this month I just started teaching a different group of kids the concepts of engineering. For clubs, kids get to choose what they wish to learn for that month which is helpful because most of the time they want to be in that particular club, so it’s easier to teach them.

What insights have you gained so far from this opportunity to serve the community and work with children? 

I’ve gained many insights as to how to better teach my group of students I’m in charge of. Each day after being with the students, I write in my phone notes on how to better teach them. I write in what went well and what could have gone better, then I write below what to keep doing in order to know the patterns of what works, and what I could do next time to improve the situation. I’ve learned that a pattern that consistently creates success is handing out PAWS (while telling them what they’re doing right), and using CHAMPS. What are PAWS? PAWS are a little piece of paper that we use to reward the kids for good behavior. At the end of the week they can turn in their paws and potentially win prizes if their name is drawn from the bucket. Handing out the PAWS typically get kids to sit down and follow the expectations that were laid out, rather than me having to yell over everyone. What is CHAMPS? CHAMPS stands for Conversation, Help, Activity, Movement, Participation, and Success. In other words, it lays out a very structured way for the kids to know the expectations. Conversation means what level they can talk at, help means what they can do when they need help, activity means what we’re going to do next, participation is what they should be doing as well as recapping the previous steps, and success is when I ask them “If we do all this, what will we be?” and they say “Successful”. Every time there’s a transition if I use CHAMPS, the students are more apt to listening and following my lead. These are just two of the many insights I’ve gained over the past two months.

How has the experience helped you understand children, teaching, and learning? 

This experience has helped me to understand children in lots of different ways. Like the insights to rewarding behavior with PAWS and using CHAMPS for structured expectations. This isn’t my first time working with kids. In 2021, I was a counselor in training at Camp Tekakwitha and worked with two different age groups (7-11 and 11-13), and then that fall I worked with seven 4th graders to teach them religion. Then in 2022, I worked as a camp counselor at the same camp for five weeks and worked with 6-11 year olds. I’ve also babysat a few neighborhood kids when I was 13 and 16. So I have experience with kids, but what makes the Y after school program experience different? This is the first time I’ve worked with a group of kids this large on my own. At first, I was just observing one of the other staff members, but after around four sessions I worked with my own group of kids. It’s been a rewarding experience, and I’ve learned and am still learning through taking a lot of notes on how I can improve each session. I’ve found that if I’m direct in what I’m saying, and acting confident most of the kids will listen to me. I’ve also learned that when doing academic time, I have to assign the kids in different spots because otherwise they’ll be off task the whole time.

What are the best things about the environment you are working in impact the experience of the children? 

I feel this program has a great environment some days and other days it’s a little more difficult. I say this because sometimes we don’t have enough staff to run a successful program. The ratio might be around 1:20 or 1:25 on some days which makes it hard for the children to feel they have eyes on them the whole time. This can cause problems such as fights and being off task. Other days however, we have enough staff to create an environment that can keep watch on all the kids. This reduces the chaos and raises the structure for kids who need high structure learning. It allows kids to get into less trouble. Another great part about this program is the clubs. Clubs provide opportunities that the kids may not have gotten otherwise. For example, there were a couple of days that I took the 3rd graders fishing on a bridge. This provided them an opportunity to learn something most of them haven’t done before.

What are the challenges for the children and the staff working in this program?

One challenge for both the children and the staff is that the kids come directly from an eight-hour school day. They’ve been sitting for most of the day, and are super hyper because of that. Some of them are tired and just want to go home. Some of them are tired of listening to an authority figure and straight up don’t listen. One way we combat this challenge is we have the students go outside and play on the playground, when it’s not freezing outside. When it is freezing outside, we have them play in the gym. This allows for some of the energy they feel from sitting inside the whole day to burn out a bit. Another way to combat this challenge, at least for me personally, is to know that the students will be antsy and prepare yourself for it. This is to not get overwhelmed when dealing with the students who don’t want to listen. Personally, I wouldn’t want to stay three hours extra after a long school day listening to another teacher, so I try to understand where they are coming from and try to meet them where they’re at. If you try to understand and know where the students come from, then the less annoyed and aggravated you’ll be when dealing with students who want to cause problems and flat out refuse to listen.