The first week Clare and I went to volunteer at the Lydia
Home was definitely a new experience for me.
Since I’m the youngest in my family, I haven’t spent that much time
around children, so I was quite nervous.
We had met with the director of the home, Miss Joyce, before. She was very welcoming and helped explain
what we were supposed to do. Our job as
volunteers was to play with the children during play time, and to also help
them with their homework if they had any, and if they didn’t we worked with
them out of a work book provided by the center.
On the first day, we were greeted by a group of children,
probably somewhere between 10 and 15.
They were all very welcoming, and some were as young as Kindergarteners,
and others were as old as fifth graders.
The day was Monday, March 4, and we got there just as they were ending
play time and starting to work with Awana, which is a church group that goes to
the Lydia Home once or twice a week to teach the children about the bible and
about God. They were working out of
their work books, reciting versus and looking up passages to answer questions
about. Clare and I teamed up to work
with a fifth grade girl named Jonasai. She
had to help us understand how to work out of the books with her so that we
could clear her to go on to the next page.
A lot of it has to do with reciting, which is related to remembering. Reciting helps them to remember the versus so
that they are able to understand what they’re reading about and apply it to
their life. I continued to help Jonasai
with her homework that day, and sometimes we had some conflicts about what they
answers were and the way in which she was doing her problems. She had long division, and I noticed that she
did an answer incorrectly and told her to look it over again. She responded that she was doing the problem
the way she was taught, and only got confused when I tried to explain it to
her. We eventually just moved on,
because the conflict wasn’t that important to either of us and we were having
trouble communicating and understanding each other’s different
perspectives.
That following Wednesday, we got there and Miss Joyce was
very busy, so as soon as we got there the children were running wild. Clare and I tried to persuade some of them to
get started, but they didn’t want to and continued to misbehave. When Miss Joyce came into the room, she was
very upset and disappointed in the students. She gave them a lecture about responsibility
and listening, and that they should be responsible enough to know that it’s
time to stop playing and start working on their homework. Before she came into the room, the children
had only been hearing but not really listening, and if they had been listening,
it was only mindlessly listening and not really thinking about what they’re
hearing. Once Miss Joyce came in, they
started to mindfully listen because they respect her. After they calmed down, I work with a little
boy named Keidryn. He had a math
worksheet that he had to finish before he could go and play with the other
kids. Miss Joyce put him in a separate
class room away from the other kids.
This was a way to avoid all types of noise that could distract him and
keep him focused. I was able to work
with him and keep him on track until he finished the worksheet, and he went to
play with the other kids before we left.
With these things that I learned, in the future when working
with kids, I know that I need to be understanding to the way and rate that they
learn, and I also need to be sure that I communicate to them in a way that they
are able to understand and know that I’m there to offer help. The other thing is that with small children
especially, it is important to try and eliminate all noise that could be
distracting and keep them on track and focused on the task at hand.
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