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Volunteering Many people today have never and will never volunteer. Volunteering by definition is a person who acts of his own free will in a transaction. When people hear the word volunteer they ask, "Am I going to get paid?" Volunteering is something you do not for the money, but for self-satisfaction that you helped someone else. Any time someone helps another without being asked they are volunteering. Many people volunteer but inside they really wish they were out fishing or shopping, but I volunteer for the look on the child's face when he / she learns something new. There are many different groups to volunteer with.
One major group is the AmeriCorps. Each year, AmeriCorps has more than 40, 000 members serve with programs in every state nation wide. Groups such as American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, and Boys and Girls clubs are a few out of the thousand different programs that make up the AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps offers many different fields of volunteering from teaching kids how to read to building homes for low-income families. You do not have to be a part of the AmeriCorps to make a difference; there are other places such as PM Academy where you can change someone's life for the better. One of our local volunteering sites is PM Academy.
PM Academy is an after school program for kids in first through third grade that need extra help in math, reading, and writing. PM Academy was started to help kids in problem areas. The kids are split up into groups by their grade. Each group has two volunteers; one assumes the role of the teacher and the other helps individual students. This year PM Academy has a total of fifteen kids and 5 volunteers; this equals a ratio of one teacher to three kids, which allows the kids to have more of a one on one environment with the teacher. This is more personal attention than he / she would have in the classroom, giving them exactly what they need to get caught up.
My first experience with volunteering was chaos. I decided to volunteer for PM Academy because it was working with young kids. The first day I was a little nervous because I didn't know what to expect from the kids. I walked into the classroom and over to the corner of the room to introduce myself to Sue, the director of PM Academy. She told me that I would be working with the second grade students. She gave me a packet of worksheets for the kids to work on and pointed me to the table where my class would be sitting.
Sue told me to go ahead and sit at my table and she would bring the students over. I was sitting at the table, looking at the worksheets when I saw Sue approaching me with four girls following close behind. They all sat down at the table and I quickly noticed one thing; they did not want to sit close to me. This was the first speed bump. I passed out the worksheets that Sue had given to me earlier and told them if they needed any help to just ask. I watched them work on the worksheets but every time I tried to help one of the girls, she would scoot away.
After cracking a few jokes to ease the tensions they began to accept my help even though I have boy cookies. At the end of the day I felt like I had made a good impression on the kids and things should go even better next time. As I continued to volunteer the kids adapted to my teaching style and it got a lot easier. The kids no longer sat on the other side of the table but instead fight over who gets to sit next to me. As the girls got more comfortable with me they insisted that I help them on everything from tying their shoes to picking out colors on their art project. One of the great things about working with young kids is I get to see the kids improve everyday and know that I am an important part of their success.
I watched the girls struggle at first, but I always stayed right behind them, showing them techniques like, using their fingers when working with addition and subtraction, constantly pushing them to do their best. Their confidence has risen a lot since the beginning and they are starting to do the papers without any help. I hope that this confidence comes through in their classroom also.
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Research essay sample on Working With Young Kids Working With Young One
