[ESSAY] Summer 2010

It was the beginning of summer 2010. I wanted to do something productive. I decided to volunteer somewhere ,not knowing where. While I was walking around Oakland, I visited my old elementary school, Acorn Woodland Elementary School. I stopped to say hi to the principle, Ms.Kimmy. Right there and then I though to myself then asked her if they had a summer school starting soon to volunteer my time into. She told me they did not but the other school in the same campus was, to go ask if I could, and tell Ms.Nguen, principle of Encompass Academy, that she had sent me. I went over and left with a date to start.

The first day they had a mandatory staff meeting the day before it was the starting date for the students. That day I met all the staff and many at a personal level due to activities the principle assigned. The staff was great; All multicultural which brought different point of views to the table, all very nice people, young and old. As I sat there observing and I saw that they all actually cared for the student's academic achievements. They all shared ideas from little things of how the special education buses would arrive from to how to approach kids with who did not get a subject after several times. I was just there to see how the program will go about, introduce myself, and to know my schedule.  However, I left the room with a new point of view of school staff. My outlook on schools and respect for teacher went to all time high.

The first official day of school started and I was excited, for a change. I had to wait for the students that got dropped off early and play games with them. After that I went to the first grade classroom for half hour to help the kids and mostly the teacher. The next hour in my schedule was dedicated to the third grade class. The one class I spent the longest time with was with the second graders. I spent an hour and a half. At lunch I help in the cafeteria. After that I had my lunch time, some times help in the special ed. classes, and other times I just spent my time with the security. The rest of my time was set on helping the fifth grade class and anything else the principle wanted me to help with. 

At the beginning there was not much to do. Once the real work started to cave in I learn a lot from the kids and staff. From the kids, I saw that they do not take school as a must ,as most people do, they take it as a nature, something fun and stimulative. They do struggle at first but it is all mostly due to lack of concentration because all they want to do is play. They do not sit there and complain about their work. They do it while playing around. They helped me see to always look on the bright side. To take any challenge as a good one and if you lose there will always be next time. Life is full of second chances but we have to learn from our mistakes to move on. You should never worry about what other people say about you because you are the one that has to live with the thought of your self. To never criticizes others because it can really affect them. Kids are kids and we all still have that little kiddish self of us inside we will never lose but should never forget because they see the world in a better way.Even though people say kids know nothing they can actually teach us a lot with out them even knowing they are doing so.