Weblog 2

The site that I will be working at for the service learning is Gearity Preschool. The preschool is mainly for children with special needs, and it is Fridays from 12:15-2:30. I believe that this preschool is in Gearity Elementary School, which I visited last year in my ED 100 class. I have not yet had my service orientation, so I don't know much else about Gearity Preschool, but I'm excited to have the chance to work there.

I'm excited to get to work with preschool children and children with special needs. I have worked before with kids with special needs at my high school, and over the summer and both were very good experience's. My cousin also has autism, so it has also been an interest of mine to work with children with autism and other special needs. I'm also a little nervous, as I've never done any service with John Carroll yet, so I'm not really sure what to expect. I think I know where the elementary school is, I think I drive past it on my way to school, so atleast I kind of know where I'm going. I'm also looking forward to this because I loved doing class room visits in ED 100 and have been wanting to do more for a while now. Preschool is also an age group that I haven't had too much experience with, other then working with them at my church, so I think this should be a lot of fun, I'm really looking forward to my first day on site.

I think that a site for service learning has to be a place where there is a need for some kind of interaction.Yesterday in class, you brought up the question that people don't come on a bus to John Carroll, but we go on a bus to certain places. I think a site could be an intercity school, where you are tutoring kids who may not have a good home life. Or a site could be working with people with special needs , or reading to the elderly. In short a site, in my opinion, is a place where you connect with people in a different realm of life than you, and you both learn things from each other.

Do the people at this site always need help?
Not help, per say, maybe more friendships and connects, it goes both ways, you and the people at the service site are really both helping each other.

Will the people at service site always have had different live experiences than I did? Yes, weather their from a different generation, culture, background, or living situations, people are always different, no one person has the same experiences as someone else. This is not just for service learning, but for life, though in service learning these different experiences can lead to learning new things and opening your mind.

I went to a public elementary school in a good school district, does this mean that I'll have a hard time connecting with kids at a service site who are having a different elementary school experience? I don't think so, I think I'll have to open my mind and think past my own experiences to get to know these kids and not have biases.

In conclusion I'm not sure what service learning will be like, but I'm looking forward to the experience and I'm sure it will help to shape me as a teacher.