Found Sudanese School My Portofolio for Service Learning By: Hannah Everhart :)
Table of Contents: - Journals- Disability Research- Action Plan- Service Learning Reflective Essay- Smart Goal - Pictures
Journals
Journal entry #1-
This journal entry is about the first time I worked with the Sudanese refugees. I have never really taught anyone else; so I didn’t really know what I was suppose to do. Sure, I knew I was suppose to teach them, but the difficulties I had with not being there from the beginning was knowing what level of math and English, the subjects I was going to be working with them on. Also, I don’t speak much Arabic, so there might be a communication gap between the children and myself.
When we first arrived at the Found Sudanese school, I was shocked. In my mind, I was actually picturing a real school building, much like CAC. I was not use to other school buildings. The Found Sudanese school was the bottom of an apartment complex. It was small, tight, and over crowded with students, from kindergarteners to people older than myself. We were guided into a small room, with roughly five benches on each sit, filled with boys and girls, appearing the same age as I was. There was one small white board, and that was pretty much it. The boys and girls stared, and I wasn’t sure they understood that we were here to help them. I was wrong there, because people had been there before and the Sudanese understood the reason why we were here.
Mrs. Lantz gave us each two children, either two boys or two girls, and guided us out to the lawn space. As we were going there, I got a quick look of the other classroom. There was one teacher, writing something on the board, and what looked like a range of third graders to tenth graders copying the thing on the board to their notebooks. Once in the courtyard, my girls, brought a table and three chairs. While I was waiting for them, there was another classroom. I peered inside this one as well, and what I saw was upsetting to me. There were roughly 60 desks, not really desks, with 60 students copying something that didn’t even make sense on the board to their notebooks. I felt bad for them because they didn’t understand that it was wrong.
As I began to work with my girls, we started from the very beginning of their English book, the subject we were working on that particular day, and I noticed that one girl didn’t talk at all and let the others girl talk for her. I predicted this problem, and I asked repeated questions to the quiet girl, and she wouldn’t answer. When it came down to writing sentences, the same girl would look over at her friend’s paper and copy what her friend had written down.
As the two hours passed, we got through roughly five pages of the book. It was very distracting to the girls, and myself when the girls’ friends would come over and talk to them. I allowed them to sit down and to participate in the learning of the day, but they didn’t want to. As we finished the lesson, we reviewed what we had gone over in the past two hours. One of the girls just stared at me, like I had worms crawling out of my ears, and as I looked at her notebook, she had hardly written anything down. Well, you win some and you learn some I guess.
This day was very interesting to me. I was able to learn about the children I was going to work with, and how I was going to be able to teach them. I noted in my head each girls work habit, so the next time, when we worked on math, I would be able to help them. I think this is going to go well.
Journal Entry #2-
This journal entry is about the time I went to the Found Sudanese school and I worked with the children on math. Since my last experience, I had learned much from the Sudanese school. When I returned to work on math, I was greeted with handshakes and hellos. I smiled at the girls I had worked with, and they smiled back. As I entered the same small familiar room, I decided mentally that to widen my experience I was going to work with two other girls. I was assigned two new girls and one of the old girls. It was the same quiet girl, who copied off everyone’s paper and looked at me as if I had worms crawling out of my ears.
As I introduced myself to the girls, and they introduced themselves to me, I gave them some very simple math problems to see if they were able to give it out. Since I was working with the quiet girl again, I gave each of the girls one question, let them answer the question, and then moved on to the next girl. That way it would give each girl a fair chance at answering.
After a few rounds of just completely random math questions, I was able to tell where each girl was in her level of math. One of the new girls was very good at math, the other new girl was good, and the quiet girl, just like English, needed lots of help. Mrs. Lantz had given us an assignment to complete with our people. There was one for each of them. It was a multiplication chart. I decided to give them a quiz, using their charts to see if they knew how to use them. I gave them each 15 questions, that were completely different. The girls finished their question, a few quicker than the other. I skimmed over them, noting the ones they had gotten incorrect. After I had gone through all of them, I worked with them the ones they had gotten wrong. After a while, it looked like to me that they were understanding the ones they had gotten wrong.
To me, math is not an easy subject. Because of this, I can see why the girls struggle because I know how it is to struggle especially in math. I have been taught how to go slowly in math to make sure that I personally understand what we are learning. I used this same technique of going slowly with the girls to make sure that they fully understood the problem before we moved on. Since we were multiplying, I introduced the girls to “Factor Families” and showed them different ways to write the problem and get the same answer, and also doing the opposite.
This visit I felt was harder, because math is a harder subject for me to teach because I struggled, and that I think it is hard to teach math because the girls are all at different levels. But then again, no two people are at the same level, one’s either going to be better or worse. Personally I enjoyed teaching English more than math. I feel as if I connect more with the kids in English than I do in math. I hope I will get more opportunities to work with these children. They are great fun and I feel as if I am making a difference to them. Journal Entry #3- I wasn’t able to go the Sudanese school for quite sometime. When I returned to working with the Sudanese, we had shifted gears and were working on cooking. On my first visit, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that there was going to be some difficulty because we may or may not have all the ingredients needed, the language barrier, etc.
On my first visit to cooking with the Sudanese we were making Mac ’n’ cheese as well as tomatoes sprinkled with seasoning and spinach with tahina. I helped with getting the noodles ready to be baked. The girls, and it was only girls that came, talked in Arabic, and did the work. Mrs. Lantz told us that the Sudanese girls cooked dinner at their homes. It made me really think about how fortunate we are. While the noodles were still cooking, I and Sonali, worked on the tomatoes. We were asked to cut the tomatoes into fat slices, and then lay them face up, seed side up, once we were done. At first, we both were not sure how to do it. Then Mrs. Lantz demonstrated for us and we were able to get it. Sonali and I cut the tomatoes, and then sprinkled them with some Italian seasoning Mrs. Lantz had, and then sprinkled them with oil. The other girls came at watched us, and we let them cut the tomatoes. By accident, while one of the girls poured the oil, she poured too much. Mrs. Lantz assured us it was ok because olive oil is good for you.
While the food was in the oven cooking, the Sudanese girls and the people who came to help ate the tomatoes and the spinach with tahina. The tomatoes were very good, I highly recommend it, while I am not a big fan of tahina, the spinach and tahina were good, but not my favorite. So as I was saying, as the food was cooking, everyone left the kitchen and headed out to the living room.
As we all sat around on the black couches, we didn’t say much. The Sudanese talked amongst themselves, and the helpers just kept quiet. Watermelon was passed around. Finally one of the helpers suggested playing Monopoly. The Sudanese girls didn’t know how to play, so we explained it to them. After the explanation, and after two rounds, the Sudanese girls understood how to do it. We only played a round or two after that because then the food was ready.
When the food was dished out, all you could hear was chewing. It was very good. After we had all eaten, we wrote down the recipe. (I will post the recipe for the tomatoes and the spinach after this journal entry.) I had to leave early, due to the fact that I had to get my brother, and my mom was working. I think that the experience I had with cooking really showed more depth to the Sudanese than I really knew about.
Recipes:
Sliced Tomatoes
- Cut ripe tomatoes into thick slices
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Drizzle lightly olive oil and vinegar
- Sprinkle Italian seasoning: rosemary, thyme oregano (also known as zatar)
- Enjoy! Spinach with Tahina
- Wash spinach leaves
- Steam till cooked (can/cannot use water)
- Drain and chop leaves
- One cup of tahina
- add to the tahina the juice of four small limes/lemons
- add ½ cup of water, MIX WELL
- add spinach, MIX WELL
- eat as dip/spread
- enjoy! Journal Entry #4- On my last visit with working on the Sudanese, it was a bit of a heart breaker. I have grown to know these girls and I don’t want to say goodbye to them. I honestly wish I could keep them as friends, maybe I might, and hopefully our paths will cross again someday. I have grown to care for these girls, and I feel as if I have made a difference in their lives. I believe that the girls have grown to know me, and that they are free to be open with me. I feel as if some of the girls are still acting like strangers towards me, but you win some and you lose some right?
So as I was saying, on my last visit with working with the Sudanese, we were still cooking. Every time I went there, they always surprised me with what we were making. That particular time we were making some dish wish zucchini, the name I cannot remember at this particular moment of time. I wasn’t able to taste the dish because I had to leave early.
When I arrived at Mrs. Lantz’s house, the Sudanese girl’s were already there. One of them had brought their little sister, Lulu was her name, and she was so cute. Sadly, I did not bring my camera that day, so I do not have a picture of her. Anyways, the girls had the vegetables already peeled and laid out. As more people came, we began to work on the dish. Since I do not like the smell of beef that much, when it is cooked on the stove, I had to step out of the kitchen for that portion of the cooking. I don’t know what it is, it is just something about that smell that bothers me.
Once the meat was cooked, and I returned to the kitchen, I helped with setting up the vegetables in the pot. The zucchini had to stand straight up, so it was difficult to find a pot that would keep all the vegetables. Once we finally found a pot, it was time for me to go.
I wasn’t able to see the final result of the dish, but I heard it went well. I really do think this whole service learning experience has been a really great opportunity for me. It has taught me cooperation, leadership, and other valuable skills I may use for future references. I have recognized the less fortunate and been able to help them without giving them money and I feel as if I have given them valuable education points that they can use for future references. They have taught me so much, as I them. It is sort of a win, win situation. I hope in my next post I will be as involved in service learning as I am here.
Disability Research Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is a mild case of Autism. The child diagnosed with Asperger’s can be highly functional, unlike most children with Autism. Many kids’s with AS share the same skills as kids with “high-functioning autism.” Boys are three to four times more likely than girls to be affect with AS. Many kids are diagnosed with AS at the age of three, with most being diagnosed between the ages of five and nine. Kids with AS may have but not excluding poor social interactions, obsessions, odd speech patterns. Kids with AS often have few facial expressions and they have difficulty reading body language. Lasts for a lifetime, but sometimes the symptoms decrease. Children with AS can improve with self-help skills, and being included in the family unit.
Action Plan Target Problem:
Sudanese Refugee children not understanding their education
Target Group
Sudanese Refugee children
Project Title
Found Sudanese School
Goals:
Smart Goal 1: Teaching basic english
Smart Goal 2: teaching basic math
Smart Goal 3: moving on to more complex english and math work
Obstacles:
- Language barrier: My Arabic isn’t that great and I am not so sure about their English
- Distractions: Other students coming over and distracting them. Other things drawing their attention away from the lesson.
- Memory: Might not remember what we had reviewed last time, so might have to go over
- Tolerance: the children, or myself, may run out of patience and tolerance with the behavior the other one is giving them, and refuse to learn, or won’t accept the idea of the lesson or matter at hand.
Tasks:
- Making sure the kids understand me and can tolerate me teaching them.
- Learning the new material
- Make sure they understand the new + old material so they can use it for future reference.
- Make sure that they use the new material properly Service Learning Essay Service Learning Reflective Essay
What comes to mind when you hear the word service? Helping those in need? For example, working at a soup kitchen or working at a deprived school? I chose the second one. For my service learning project in the school year 2011-2012, I chose to work with Mrs. Lantz in the Found Sudanese School. My expectations were set high, not knowing what to expect.
When I heard the of Found Sudanese School, I literally expected a school. Not a floor of an apartment building. I was shocked at what I saw, but I knew they needed my help so I didn’t let my astonishment get the best of me. I knew there were going to be difficulties. Even in my own learning, I see teachers having difficulty trying to teach the students. But my education is I believe is at a higher level than those of the Sudanese. The problems I thought of were the language barrier, distractions, English and Math levels, etc. The basic skills for us might seem as the first level to the Sudanese. Hopefully with continuous work the basic skills will actually seem basic to them.
Before coming to Egypt, honestly I wasn’t that involved in service. I lived in a neighborhood where things seemed OK. If I did see a beggar in the street, I would give them any loose change I would have in my pockets at that moment of time. Moving to Egypt really opened my eyes. In the beginning of the year, I really wasn’t sure how to do service. I worked as a classroom assistant for a while at CAC, but I felt like I really wasn’t helping the community around me. I began to work at the Holy Garage at my church, a clothing drive my church had set up. I felt as if I was helping the community more than the classroom assistant, but there still felt like something was missing. As soon as I heard of Mrs. Lantz project, I knew that it was the project for me. I felt that if I did work with the Sudanese, that I would full understand the subject of service.
I heard that while working with the Sudanese, we should try to increase their level of thinking. We should try to get them higher in their thinking. I thought about how I was going to do that. I figured that if I had the girls I was working with write sentences about the topic we were discussing, that it would improve their level of thinking. As I tried it out, it proved that I was right. I continued using that method, but every other time kept adding to it to make their brains think more. I believe that it helped me as well because it made me think outside of the box to try to figure out how to increase their levels of thinking.
I personally am not good a problem solving unless I have someone there to guide me through the steps, so I can see how we got the answer. If I am left alone to do problem solving, I either confuse myself or get the wrong answer. I didn’t want the girls I was teaching to follow in my bad traits. I decided to change my way of thinking and to try to solve the problems myself. When I changed my thoughts of problem solving, I found that I was able to solve the problems and get the right answer without confusing myself. I applied the same techniques I used to the girls, and saw that they were able to solve the problems without and difficulties. The methods I used were taking the problems step by step, and making sure that I fully understood it without asking anyone else, and then solving the problem if I got it. These techniques I used fall under decision making skills I believe because I was teaching the girls valuable skills for their education in the next coming years.
In the beginning with working with the Sudanese, I was like “do I really have to go again? Can’t they teach themselves?” and I knew immediately that that way of thinking was incorrect. I should’ve been thinking thoughts such as “I wonder the girls will be able to remember the material I taught them last time, and maybe we will be able to move on.” After working with the Sudanese for roughly a month, I saw a change in myself. I was actually excited to go to the Sudanese school because I felt as I had friendships growing there. Now that the school year is over, and I am moving, I am upset because I don’t want to lose these friendships I have made with the Sudanese.
When I first started working with the school, the girls I worked with giggled way to much for me, and were talking to one another in Arabic, and I felt as if they were laughing at me. I made a “no-Arabic” speaking rule, trying to get the girls to use the English they were learning. At first, the girls laughed at the rule and then continued speaking Arabic, so I took matters into my own hands and made the girls do tough work, showing what would happen if they didn’t follow my rule. I did that tough work for roughly three lessons, just making sure the girls fully understood that I was here to do serious work. After a while, the girls began to respect my rule, and spoke English to one another. I felt this change, and the girls spoke to me in English. I was glad that my rule had an effect on them, and hope they will still follow my rule even though I wont be living in Egypt anymore.
The challenges I faced with the girls are as I stated before, the language barrier. I don’t speak much Arabic, and new to the Sudanese school, I wasn’t sure how well the girls English was. Also the distractions, seeing how many children were there are all the distractions it would, and did, create. Also free will, the girls might’ve chosen not to follow my lesson, and could’ve just ignored me completely. Once I finally connected with the girls, they sort of allowed me to teach them and they would understand what I was teaching them.
I felt that I was making an impact on the girls I was working with. I felt as if I was teaching them more than they were learning during school hours. I heard that the teacher wrote things down on a board, the students copied it, and that was the end of the class. Hopefully the girls acknowledged my help, and felt as if I was helping them in school. During the month of May, this month, the students are taking their final exams, as I heard through the grape vine, and hopefully all that we have worked on the past year will have helped them during their exams.
In the beginning of the year, the girls were very quiet towards me, and only spoke amongst themselves, and I actually had to force them to talk, by continuously calling on them to give me the answer. As the year progressed, the girls were answering the questions without me calling on them. That my friend, I call progress. I hope in their future studies that they will be as motivated they were with me with their other teachers.
A few issues I found with the school were the fact that it wasn’t actually a real school, just a floor of an apartment building. That disturbed me a lot actually because I knew that it wasn’t right, but what could I do? I thought there wouldn’t be enough bake sales to help them move their location. Another thing was the number of students there were. The students looked to be in grades kindergarten-ninth grade. But this is what most of them have, so they are grateful. If more students come, who knows what will happen.
In conclusion, I felt warm-hearted working with the Sudanese, and I found it a great experience. I hope in my next post, that I will be able to work with such a wonderful group of kids. I am very thankful for all that they have taught me, and all that Egypt has offered to me these last four years.
Smart GoalSpecific: Teaching the seventh graders at Found Sudanese School English and MathMeasurable: Seventh graders who I am working with are able to write full paragraphs (or close to) in English on the topics we have discussed, and in Math being able to solve other, more difficult problems we had worked onAchievable: Students able to write 2-3 sentences, students able to work longer Math problemsRealistic: constant repeat and moving forwardTimely: Able to get it done in 5-6 months Pictures
Break Time! Waiting for the food...
"Can I see that?" Working on the puzzle....
"I'm stuffed! The food was egg-cellent!" "This carrot was suppose to go in the dish! Whoops! Haha"
"Would you like some hand-sanitizer?" "The food was great, don't you agree?" "Yes, the flavors blended well"
Note: For the pictures, the captions all slid over
One Voice, One Education, One Chance
Found Sudanese SchoolMy Portofolio for Service Learning
By: Hannah Everhart :)
Table of Contents:
- Journals- Disability Research- Action Plan- Service Learning Reflective Essay- Smart Goal
- Pictures
Journals
Journal entry #1-
This journal entry is about the first time I worked with the Sudanese refugees. I have never really taught anyone else; so I didn’t really know what I was suppose to do. Sure, I knew I was suppose to teach them, but the difficulties I had with not being there from the beginning was knowing what level of math and English, the subjects I was going to be working with them on. Also, I don’t speak much Arabic, so there might be a communication gap between the children and myself.
When we first arrived at the Found Sudanese school, I was shocked. In my mind, I was actually picturing a real school building, much like CAC. I was not use to other school buildings. The Found Sudanese school was the bottom of an apartment complex. It was small, tight, and over crowded with students, from kindergarteners to people older than myself. We were guided into a small room, with roughly five benches on each sit, filled with boys and girls, appearing the same age as I was. There was one small white board, and that was pretty much it. The boys and girls stared, and I wasn’t sure they understood that we were here to help them. I was wrong there, because people had been there before and the Sudanese understood the reason why we were here.
Mrs. Lantz gave us each two children, either two boys or two girls, and guided us out to the lawn space. As we were going there, I got a quick look of the other classroom. There was one teacher, writing something on the board, and what looked like a range of third graders to tenth graders copying the thing on the board to their notebooks. Once in the courtyard, my girls, brought a table and three chairs. While I was waiting for them, there was another classroom. I peered inside this one as well, and what I saw was upsetting to me. There were roughly 60 desks, not really desks, with 60 students copying something that didn’t even make sense on the board to their notebooks. I felt bad for them because they didn’t understand that it was wrong.
As I began to work with my girls, we started from the very beginning of their English book, the subject we were working on that particular day, and I noticed that one girl didn’t talk at all and let the others girl talk for her. I predicted this problem, and I asked repeated questions to the quiet girl, and she wouldn’t answer. When it came down to writing sentences, the same girl would look over at her friend’s paper and copy what her friend had written down.
As the two hours passed, we got through roughly five pages of the book. It was very distracting to the girls, and myself when the girls’ friends would come over and talk to them. I allowed them to sit down and to participate in the learning of the day, but they didn’t want to. As we finished the lesson, we reviewed what we had gone over in the past two hours. One of the girls just stared at me, like I had worms crawling out of my ears, and as I looked at her notebook, she had hardly written anything down. Well, you win some and you learn some I guess.
This day was very interesting to me. I was able to learn about the children I was going to work with, and how I was going to be able to teach them. I noted in my head each girls work habit, so the next time, when we worked on math, I would be able to help them. I think this is going to go well.
Journal Entry #2-
This journal entry is about the time I went to the Found Sudanese school and I worked with the children on math. Since my last experience, I had learned much from the Sudanese school. When I returned to work on math, I was greeted with handshakes and hellos. I smiled at the girls I had worked with, and they smiled back. As I entered the same small familiar room, I decided mentally that to widen my experience I was going to work with two other girls. I was assigned two new girls and one of the old girls. It was the same quiet girl, who copied off everyone’s paper and looked at me as if I had worms crawling out of my ears.
As I introduced myself to the girls, and they introduced themselves to me, I gave them some very simple math problems to see if they were able to give it out. Since I was working with the quiet girl again, I gave each of the girls one question, let them answer the question, and then moved on to the next girl. That way it would give each girl a fair chance at answering.
After a few rounds of just completely random math questions, I was able to tell where each girl was in her level of math. One of the new girls was very good at math, the other new girl was good, and the quiet girl, just like English, needed lots of help. Mrs. Lantz had given us an assignment to complete with our people. There was one for each of them. It was a multiplication chart. I decided to give them a quiz, using their charts to see if they knew how to use them. I gave them each 15 questions, that were completely different. The girls finished their question, a few quicker than the other. I skimmed over them, noting the ones they had gotten incorrect. After I had gone through all of them, I worked with them the ones they had gotten wrong. After a while, it looked like to me that they were understanding the ones they had gotten wrong.
To me, math is not an easy subject. Because of this, I can see why the girls struggle because I know how it is to struggle especially in math. I have been taught how to go slowly in math to make sure that I personally understand what we are learning. I used this same technique of going slowly with the girls to make sure that they fully understood the problem before we moved on. Since we were multiplying, I introduced the girls to “Factor Families” and showed them different ways to write the problem and get the same answer, and also doing the opposite.
This visit I felt was harder, because math is a harder subject for me to teach because I struggled, and that I think it is hard to teach math because the girls are all at different levels. But then again, no two people are at the same level, one’s either going to be better or worse. Personally I enjoyed teaching English more than math. I feel as if I connect more with the kids in English than I do in math. I hope I will get more opportunities to work with these children. They are great fun and I feel as if I am making a difference to them.
Journal Entry #3-
I wasn’t able to go the Sudanese school for quite sometime. When I returned to working with the Sudanese, we had shifted gears and were working on cooking. On my first visit, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that there was going to be some difficulty because we may or may not have all the ingredients needed, the language barrier, etc.
On my first visit to cooking with the Sudanese we were making Mac ’n’ cheese as well as tomatoes sprinkled with seasoning and spinach with tahina. I helped with getting the noodles ready to be baked. The girls, and it was only girls that came, talked in Arabic, and did the work. Mrs. Lantz told us that the Sudanese girls cooked dinner at their homes. It made me really think about how fortunate we are. While the noodles were still cooking, I and Sonali, worked on the tomatoes. We were asked to cut the tomatoes into fat slices, and then lay them face up, seed side up, once we were done. At first, we both were not sure how to do it. Then Mrs. Lantz demonstrated for us and we were able to get it. Sonali and I cut the tomatoes, and then sprinkled them with some Italian seasoning Mrs. Lantz had, and then sprinkled them with oil. The other girls came at watched us, and we let them cut the tomatoes. By accident, while one of the girls poured the oil, she poured too much. Mrs. Lantz assured us it was ok because olive oil is good for you.
While the food was in the oven cooking, the Sudanese girls and the people who came to help ate the tomatoes and the spinach with tahina. The tomatoes were very good, I highly recommend it, while I am not a big fan of tahina, the spinach and tahina were good, but not my favorite. So as I was saying, as the food was cooking, everyone left the kitchen and headed out to the living room.
As we all sat around on the black couches, we didn’t say much. The Sudanese talked amongst themselves, and the helpers just kept quiet. Watermelon was passed around. Finally one of the helpers suggested playing Monopoly. The Sudanese girls didn’t know how to play, so we explained it to them. After the explanation, and after two rounds, the Sudanese girls understood how to do it. We only played a round or two after that because then the food was ready.
When the food was dished out, all you could hear was chewing. It was very good. After we had all eaten, we wrote down the recipe. (I will post the recipe for the tomatoes and the spinach after this journal entry.) I had to leave early, due to the fact that I had to get my brother, and my mom was working. I think that the experience I had with cooking really showed more depth to the Sudanese than I really knew about.
Recipes:
Sliced Tomatoes
- Cut ripe tomatoes into thick slices
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper
- Drizzle lightly olive oil and vinegar
- Sprinkle Italian seasoning: rosemary, thyme oregano (also known as zatar)
- Enjoy!
Spinach with Tahina
- Wash spinach leaves
- Steam till cooked (can/cannot use water)
- Drain and chop leaves
- One cup of tahina
- add to the tahina the juice of four small limes/lemons
- add ½ cup of water, MIX WELL
- add spinach, MIX WELL
- eat as dip/spread
- enjoy!
Journal Entry #4-
On my last visit with working on the Sudanese, it was a bit of a heart breaker. I have grown to know these girls and I don’t want to say goodbye to them. I honestly wish I could keep them as friends, maybe I might, and hopefully our paths will cross again someday. I have grown to care for these girls, and I feel as if I have made a difference in their lives. I believe that the girls have grown to know me, and that they are free to be open with me. I feel as if some of the girls are still acting like strangers towards me, but you win some and you lose some right?
So as I was saying, on my last visit with working with the Sudanese, we were still cooking. Every time I went there, they always surprised me with what we were making. That particular time we were making some dish wish zucchini, the name I cannot remember at this particular moment of time. I wasn’t able to taste the dish because I had to leave early.
When I arrived at Mrs. Lantz’s house, the Sudanese girl’s were already there. One of them had brought their little sister, Lulu was her name, and she was so cute. Sadly, I did not bring my camera that day, so I do not have a picture of her. Anyways, the girls had the vegetables already peeled and laid out. As more people came, we began to work on the dish. Since I do not like the smell of beef that much, when it is cooked on the stove, I had to step out of the kitchen for that portion of the cooking. I don’t know what it is, it is just something about that smell that bothers me.
Once the meat was cooked, and I returned to the kitchen, I helped with setting up the vegetables in the pot. The zucchini had to stand straight up, so it was difficult to find a pot that would keep all the vegetables. Once we finally found a pot, it was time for me to go.
I wasn’t able to see the final result of the dish, but I heard it went well. I really do think this whole service learning experience has been a really great opportunity for me. It has taught me cooperation, leadership, and other valuable skills I may use for future references. I have recognized the less fortunate and been able to help them without giving them money and I feel as if I have given them valuable education points that they can use for future references. They have taught me so much, as I them. It is sort of a win, win situation. I hope in my next post I will be as involved in service learning as I am here.
Disability Research
Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is a mild case of Autism. The child diagnosed with Asperger’s can be highly functional, unlike most children with Autism. Many kids’s with AS share the same skills as kids with “high-functioning autism.” Boys are three to four times more likely than girls to be affect with AS. Many kids are diagnosed with AS at the age of three, with most being diagnosed between the ages of five and nine. Kids with AS may have but not excluding poor social interactions, obsessions, odd speech patterns. Kids with AS often have few facial expressions and they have difficulty reading body language. Lasts for a lifetime, but sometimes the symptoms decrease. Children with AS can improve with self-help skills, and being included in the family unit.
Action Plan
Target Problem:
Sudanese Refugee children not understanding their education
Target Group
Sudanese Refugee children
Project Title
Found Sudanese School
Goals:
Smart Goal 1: Teaching basic english
Smart Goal 2: teaching basic math
Smart Goal 3: moving on to more complex english and math work
Obstacles:
- Language barrier: My Arabic isn’t that great and I am not so sure about their English
- Distractions: Other students coming over and distracting them. Other things drawing their attention away from the lesson.
- Memory: Might not remember what we had reviewed last time, so might have to go over
- Tolerance: the children, or myself, may run out of patience and tolerance with the behavior the other one is giving them, and refuse to learn, or won’t accept the idea of the lesson or matter at hand.
Tasks:
- Making sure the kids understand me and can tolerate me teaching them.
- Learning the new material
- Make sure they understand the new + old material so they can use it for future reference.
- Make sure that they use the new material properly
Service Learning Essay
Service Learning Reflective Essay
What comes to mind when you hear the word service? Helping those in need? For example, working at a soup kitchen or working at a deprived school? I chose the second one. For my service learning project in the school year 2011-2012, I chose to work with Mrs. Lantz in the Found Sudanese School. My expectations were set high, not knowing what to expect.
When I heard the of Found Sudanese School, I literally expected a school. Not a floor of an apartment building. I was shocked at what I saw, but I knew they needed my help so I didn’t let my astonishment get the best of me. I knew there were going to be difficulties. Even in my own learning, I see teachers having difficulty trying to teach the students. But my education is I believe is at a higher level than those of the Sudanese. The problems I thought of were the language barrier, distractions, English and Math levels, etc. The basic skills for us might seem as the first level to the Sudanese. Hopefully with continuous work the basic skills will actually seem basic to them.
Before coming to Egypt, honestly I wasn’t that involved in service. I lived in a neighborhood where things seemed OK. If I did see a beggar in the street, I would give them any loose change I would have in my pockets at that moment of time. Moving to Egypt really opened my eyes. In the beginning of the year, I really wasn’t sure how to do service. I worked as a classroom assistant for a while at CAC, but I felt like I really wasn’t helping the community around me. I began to work at the Holy Garage at my church, a clothing drive my church had set up. I felt as if I was helping the community more than the classroom assistant, but there still felt like something was missing. As soon as I heard of Mrs. Lantz project, I knew that it was the project for me. I felt that if I did work with the Sudanese, that I would full understand the subject of service.
I heard that while working with the Sudanese, we should try to increase their level of thinking. We should try to get them higher in their thinking. I thought about how I was going to do that. I figured that if I had the girls I was working with write sentences about the topic we were discussing, that it would improve their level of thinking. As I tried it out, it proved that I was right. I continued using that method, but every other time kept adding to it to make their brains think more. I believe that it helped me as well because it made me think outside of the box to try to figure out how to increase their levels of thinking.
I personally am not good a problem solving unless I have someone there to guide me through the steps, so I can see how we got the answer. If I am left alone to do problem solving, I either confuse myself or get the wrong answer. I didn’t want the girls I was teaching to follow in my bad traits. I decided to change my way of thinking and to try to solve the problems myself. When I changed my thoughts of problem solving, I found that I was able to solve the problems and get the right answer without confusing myself. I applied the same techniques I used to the girls, and saw that they were able to solve the problems without and difficulties. The methods I used were taking the problems step by step, and making sure that I fully understood it without asking anyone else, and then solving the problem if I got it. These techniques I used fall under decision making skills I believe because I was teaching the girls valuable skills for their education in the next coming years.
In the beginning with working with the Sudanese, I was like “do I really have to go again? Can’t they teach themselves?” and I knew immediately that that way of thinking was incorrect. I should’ve been thinking thoughts such as “I wonder the girls will be able to remember the material I taught them last time, and maybe we will be able to move on.” After working with the Sudanese for roughly a month, I saw a change in myself. I was actually excited to go to the Sudanese school because I felt as I had friendships growing there. Now that the school year is over, and I am moving, I am upset because I don’t want to lose these friendships I have made with the Sudanese.
When I first started working with the school, the girls I worked with giggled way to much for me, and were talking to one another in Arabic, and I felt as if they were laughing at me. I made a “no-Arabic” speaking rule, trying to get the girls to use the English they were learning. At first, the girls laughed at the rule and then continued speaking Arabic, so I took matters into my own hands and made the girls do tough work, showing what would happen if they didn’t follow my rule. I did that tough work for roughly three lessons, just making sure the girls fully understood that I was here to do serious work. After a while, the girls began to respect my rule, and spoke English to one another. I felt this change, and the girls spoke to me in English. I was glad that my rule had an effect on them, and hope they will still follow my rule even though I wont be living in Egypt anymore.
The challenges I faced with the girls are as I stated before, the language barrier. I don’t speak much Arabic, and new to the Sudanese school, I wasn’t sure how well the girls English was. Also the distractions, seeing how many children were there are all the distractions it would, and did, create. Also free will, the girls might’ve chosen not to follow my lesson, and could’ve just ignored me completely. Once I finally connected with the girls, they sort of allowed me to teach them and they would understand what I was teaching them.
I felt that I was making an impact on the girls I was working with. I felt as if I was teaching them more than they were learning during school hours. I heard that the teacher wrote things down on a board, the students copied it, and that was the end of the class. Hopefully the girls acknowledged my help, and felt as if I was helping them in school. During the month of May, this month, the students are taking their final exams, as I heard through the grape vine, and hopefully all that we have worked on the past year will have helped them during their exams.
In the beginning of the year, the girls were very quiet towards me, and only spoke amongst themselves, and I actually had to force them to talk, by continuously calling on them to give me the answer. As the year progressed, the girls were answering the questions without me calling on them. That my friend, I call progress. I hope in their future studies that they will be as motivated they were with me with their other teachers.
A few issues I found with the school were the fact that it wasn’t actually a real school, just a floor of an apartment building. That disturbed me a lot actually because I knew that it wasn’t right, but what could I do? I thought there wouldn’t be enough bake sales to help them move their location. Another thing was the number of students there were. The students looked to be in grades kindergarten-ninth grade. But this is what most of them have, so they are grateful. If more students come, who knows what will happen.
In conclusion, I felt warm-hearted working with the Sudanese, and I found it a great experience. I hope in my next post, that I will be able to work with such a wonderful group of kids. I am very thankful for all that they have taught me, and all that Egypt has offered to me these last four years.
Smart GoalSpecific: Teaching the seventh graders at Found Sudanese School English and MathMeasurable: Seventh graders who I am working with are able to write full paragraphs (or close to) in English on the topics we have discussed, and in Math being able to solve other, more difficult problems we had worked onAchievable: Students able to write 2-3 sentences, students able to work longer Math problemsRealistic: constant repeat and moving forwardTimely: Able to get it done in 5-6 months
Pictures
Break Time! Waiting for the food...
"Can I see that?" Working on the puzzle....
"I'm stuffed! The food was egg-cellent!" "This carrot was suppose to go in the dish! Whoops! Haha"
"Would you like some hand-sanitizer?" "The food was great, don't you agree?" "Yes, the flavors blended well"
Note: For the pictures, the captions all slid over