worky

for those of you who regularly read my blog, however few of you that may be, you may or may not have noticed that i have yet to describe my work. there are two main reasons for that; one is that it is somewhat complicated to explain exactly what I do, so I’ve been lazy about it, and the other reason is that my daily work is just now cementing into routine. i guess a third reason is that I am somewhat uncomfortable talking about the youth I work with in a semi-public forum. that said, I’m going to take a stab at it now, and not go into specifics about my students or anything.

during the school day, I work at a high school. it is one of the three large public school schools in LC, and there are over 2000 kids there. my job is to tutor at-risk students in their core classes. at-risk can mean a number of things—they have behavioral or attendence issues. or they refuse to do their work. or they come from tough lives outside of school and they need some extra help and encouragement. many are gang members that routinely get into fights. some have children. some may have problems with drugs, etc.

what i have found is that they are all interesting and friendly people who just need a little extra attention. and some can’t help but to get into big trouble. over and over again. they have been overall very accepting of me and welcome my help. i feel very fortunate in that regard, because before I started I was skeptical about how they would react to having a tutor. I didn’t want to embarrass them in their classes or anything.

I currently have about 18 students, although technically I am supposed to have 15 max. Everyday we get more requests from students who want more help. It is hard to tell them no, so we’ve started a waiting list for any new referrals or inquires that come up. For the most part, I work with my students them inside of the classroom. That way, they don’t miss anything that the teachers offer them. I work in a wide variety of classrooms, with students in grades 9-12. The most difficult part so far has been trying to figure out the logistics and the scheduling so that I can spend enough time with each student in the classes they need it most. At this point, I hardly have time to help with the classes these students are failing. most are failing all of their classes. hopefully i can help to turn that around for some of them.

i did get one interesting new student today—she only speaks french, and very little english. french speakers down here are extremely rare. so it’s really great for my french to work with her. she’s cool too. the majority of the rest of my students are ESL—Spanish being their first language. kinda wish i knew spanish, but at least my french isn’t going to waste either!

after school, i go between five or six different elementary after school enrichment programs. right now i am requesting donations for art supplies from a bunch of different businesses in LC. once i get some supplies, i’m going to be going from school to school with different art projects that i plan. it’s really fun to get to work with the littler kids after working with high schoolers all day! not that i don’t enjoy the high school, it’s just a good mix of the two right now. plus i’m really looking forward to integrating my art interest in my job. this week i am taking photos at each of the after school sites to put into a presentation about our AmeriCorps program for our state-wide AmeriCorps conference this October.

i’m also in a book club at the high school which means that there is a list of a bunch of books, and the librarians keep track of all the teachers and students who read the books and then connects them to talk about it. it’s all pretty easy reading, but it’s a cool way for me to be active in the school, plus put in a few extra hours for work. next up is 'ender's game'--to awaken the prepubescent sci-fi geek in me! just kidding--joe loves that book so i prob shouldn't make fun of it. anyway.

my job also requires x amount of volunteer hours, which i’ve been doing at the museums of las cruces over the weekends. i also am responsible to recruit volunteers for our program as well. plus we have weekend events and all sorts of things like that. so it all keeps me pretty busy. i’ve been working around 9 hours a day average. i was 14 hours behind two weeks ago (from my trip to MN) and i am already more than caught up. it’s work, but it’s not boring. and i get to move around a lot and work closely with people. so it’s cool.