The last days at FC Joyce were wonderful. The team was faced with some difficulties and drama, but for the most part, attention was focused towards enjoying the little time we had left with the kids. There were holiday parties, thank you notes, a goodbye assembly, and a talent show at the boys and girls club after school. There were tears on the playground as we left on our final day and so many hugs it would not be possible to count them all. I am going to miss my class, but it is certainly a comfort to know that I can visit during transition days between projects, when we are back in Sacramento. It is also comforting to know that another team in following in our footsteps.
While I wonder how much these kids are going to remember about me and how much they are truly going to miss me once new AmeriCorps members are there to take my place, there are certain tangible ways that I was able to see my impact. The most satisfying of these all was with one of my favorite students, Feonna. The first day I was in the classroom, there was a math test for the class. Correcting this test was one of my first tasks as teacher's assistant and I could immediately see how far behind my students were. Feonna was one such student, receiving a failing grade below 50% on this first test. Despite having a grade to match many fellow classmates, Feonna stood out from the rest. She was clearly determined to succeed. At the top of her test paper, she had written "I can do it." She cheered herself on, tried her hardest, and hoped for the best. Over the coming weeks and worked one on one with Feonna a few times both during class and at the after school program. I checked in with her frequently and she was always excited to report successes to me, though for quite some time she continued to struggle making small mistakes that ruined her answers. Then my second to last day in class, the kids took another math test. Just as before, Feonna wrote at the top of her sheet, "I can do it." And she was right! She got a 100% that day and when we showed her the score, she could not have been more excited. It was wonderful to see such success. She is only one out of the thirty students in the class, but I know that whether Feonna remembers me in the long run, that success will stick with her long enough to lead to other, bigger successes.
Each member of my teams has at least one story to rival this one. Having an education project is certainly one of the most rewarding projects I can imagine and doing this work is making me think seriously about becoming a teacher (though I do not want to be an elementary school teacher). Today we got to talk about the project, our classes, and our students, with the team that will be taking our place at FC Joyce. It was great to share our experiences and wonderful to see their faces light up at the prospect of working at the school. In this cross training, we also got to hear all about our next project at Agua Caliente. We are actually switching projects with the team Green 7 which is a fun opportunity to share experiences with other teams. I won't go into detail about what we learned today, because soon enough we will have our own stories and our own pictures to tell about Agua Caliente, but I will say I am very excited for this change of pace and new opportunity to live out of doors!
Tomorrow we drive down 10 hours to San Diego County. We are leaving at 4:30 in the morning so that we can hopefully set up our tents in remaining daylight. Should be quite a day. While I am down there I will have limited cell phone and internet access, but I should be able to keep updating at least as frequently as I did during the first round project (which was not a whole lot unfortunately).
That's all for now. Be in touch soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment