Good evening, everybody!  And now, for a change of pace!

As part of ongoing teacher education and training, UBC students in the Education program complete an internship with a community partner through the Community Field Experience program.  I was looking forward to this opportunity since it was first mentioned, and after a long and grueling practicum, it was a breath of fresh air.  I was matched up with a Neighbourhood House that was among my top choices, and to be honest, I was not sure what to expect.

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A total of four volunteers were selected to work with the Neighbourhood House — two from the Secondary program, a colleague from the Middle Years program, and me, from the Elementary program.  We haven’t had any communication with the volunteers in the Secondary program and so had little clue what was in store for us…

… but I was blown away by the fast-paced, efficient, and precise manner with which our supervisor led our first on-the-job meeting.  In a phrase, she laid out eight different initiatives the Youth Team were working on, gave my colleague and me a run-down of each project, their goals, their respective timelines, then… let us pick our own projects.  I must admit that I was not expecting that much freedom (surely there was some projects that were higher priority than the others?); granted, she was really pushing for us to contribute to a series of workshops geared towards establishing an anti-violence club at a Vancouver Secondary School, where Grade 10 students will be prepared with the requisite knowledge and skills to advocate positive and respectful communication and relationships to their peers.  My colleague and I were both really enthusiastic about this project and jumped right in, though we both would have wished for an opportunity to deliver at least one of the workshops we put together.  Admittedly, this role was more in line with our natural talents as teachers — planning the workshop for a facilitator was made much easier by our prior experience writing unit and lesson plans.

The other project we chose was to work with their BC Housing team, which provides afterschool care for youth whose families are serviced by BC Housing.  This opportunity was more hands-on and was a lot of fun — we were given opportunities to plan activities for the kids to try, and then… actually run those activities!  The program operates out of 3 different sites, and each program serves children aged 6 – 12.  While I did have prior experience in afterschool care, I didn’t have experience with such a large range!  Fortunately, the person in charge of running those programs was spirited, energetic, and established a very positive environment with each of the groups, which made it extremely easy for my colleague and me to ease into each program.  We quickly realized that the kids were rather used to teenage and adult presence — the BC Housing program benefits a lot from volunteer assistance.  While much of the planning had already been completed, we were given many chances to plan additional activities — we took their field trips and ran with it!  My colleague and I are in the process of setting up a “Ranger Day” to coincide with a field-trip to a park with lots of trees!  Can’t wait!

PS — the activities that I planned so far… didn’t all go so well.  They were generally well-received, but fizzled somewhat near the end, or participating students came across significant challenges that impeded their enjoyment… hopefully next week will turn out better!