Goodbye ACEE…

We only have about two weeks left in the ACEE program and this will be my final blog entry. This year has been different from what I expected, but much, much better than I could have imagined. I got into this to learn about nonprofits and how they work (and also because I had NO IDEA what I really wanted to do with my life/career) and I have accomplished that. I understand more about nonprofits as well as the education system. Coming into this, I knew I wanted to work with children in some capacity, but now I know I truly enjoy working down on my hands and knees with them. I will take that knowledge with me from this point and figure out what the heck I can do to make a living where I can play with kids all day long! 

Something I didn’t expect to get out of the program is a great group of friends. I had friends from college that moved to Austin as well, so I didn’t expect to absolutely fall in love with these people… but I did. I have no idea how I would have made it though this year without the support of my wonderful Winners. If you guys read this, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You are what has truly made this program for me. You understand what went on at our school, you were there when things in my personal life were messy, you were the source of many, many laughs around our lunch table, you shared your lives with me and for all of that I will be forever grateful. All of the other people in the program have been amazing as well. The staff was always there when we needed them with advice for tutoring as well as life in general. The ACEE leaders were great resources for us to turn to when we wanted a second-year perspective on things. The other three schools were also so amazing (I just didn’t spend as much time with them). 

So, for the rest of June I will be working at a morning day camp with kids ages 6-11. We do crafts, make friendship bracelets (I currently have 3 on my wrist and 2 on my ankle…), play outside, have water days, read books, sing songs, etc. Basically, we have a super fun time! These kids are with us because their parents are taking classes (Parenting, ESL, etc.) on-site and we are in charge of the childcare. I have been there two weeks already and it has just been fantastic. The kids are all so sweet and adorable! And man! Those tacos they bring for lunch make me want Mexican food every day!!

For the rest of the summer I will be working part-time with a family as a nanny. Hopefully I will find another part-time job to help pay the bills and save up for… MY TRIP TO AUSTRALIA! On August 24, 2009, I am moving to Australia for 6 months on a Working Holiday Visa. I am going with a program called BUNAC (www.BUNAC.org) and they help you find a place to live and a job to help fund your travels. I plan on staying in Sydney most of the time, but traveling around a LOT. I have a friend in the Peace Corps in Fiji that I MUST visit as well as some friends of friends in New Zealand. Some of my must-do items for my trip include: learning to surf, seeing the Great Barrier Reef, seeing kangaroos and koalas (not in a zoo), visiting Melbourne, going snowboarding, seeing the western end of the country (I hear it’s beautiful!), learning Aussie slang, getting an awesome tan, meeting great people and having the time of my life. 

So this is it. Goodbye ACEE… you will always have a special place in my heart. Don’t worry, Austin, I will be coming home to you. 

HELLO, AUSTRALIA!!!!!!!

Winding down

The EoY (or End of the Year) is only a few weeks away, and things have gotten crazy busy. The students have had days of testing which left me with a lot of free time on my hands. I spent most of that time in the library helping out with the inventory of all the books there. I only wish I had done that at the beginning of the year because there were so many awesome books that I did not even know were in there! 

We have also been post-testing our focus children to complete the data we have been gathering on them all year. This data is very important because it allows us to track the students’ progress and report how effective our program has been. So far my students have done really well, but there are a couple of kids that I wish I had more time with. I also found out that one of the students that I graduated out of the program mid-year is already reading at a second-grade level. I was super excited for her! 

This week has been AmeriCorps Awareness Week, during which we are supposed to spread the word about AmeriCorps and our program. I feel guilty for not participating in any of the Austin area events this week, but I was busy at those times so I figured I will write this blog instead. I hope I have helped you understand a bit more about what it is like to be an ACEE tutor throughout my blogs, but if you ever have any questions about what AmeriCorps is or what our program does specifically, you can visit these websites:

www.americorps.gov

www.utdanacenter.org/acee/

I do hope to squeeze a few more blogs in before school is officially over, but with an ACEE schedule, you never know…

TAKS

This week there has been a hum of activity at our school. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is the standardized test that all students in the Texas public school system must take to pass their respective grade (starting in 3rd grade), and most of the testing will take place this week. The school I work in has been classified as “Academically Unacceptable” by the state’s standards, so there is extra pressure this year for the students to have good scores. Since the beginning of the year the kids have been encouraged to use their strategies, show their work, take their time, etc., in order to do well on the TAKS. This week is the real test to see how the district’s attempts at improving the scores will turn out. I hope it is good news for the staff, teachers, and children at my school, but so far the numbers have not been great. The students are already taking the re-test for the reading portion of the test which means they didn’t pass it the first time. I guess only time will tell the ending to this story. The only other thing to keep in mind is that the middle and high schools that these students will go to are also currently in the same boat. If these two schools do not drastically improve their test scores, they will be shut down and re-staffed. I think something is not working in this system if the problem is getting worse instead of better, but that is only my opinion. 

On these testing days, our ACEE staff provides support for the school as best as we can. We are not AISD employees; therefore, we can not be in any areas of the school where testing was taking place. This limited us to monitoring the halls in the front entrance of the school to direct people and to remind them to be as quiet as possible because of the testing. We also sat in the computer lab and helped to monitor the children with special testing circumstances who finished testing before the rest of their class. Besides those two jobs, we manned the library to help the librarian. All-in-all, I finished a book each day. I am very excited about being able to tutor my focus children again tomorrow! 

I wish everyone luck with all the TAKS testing going on around the state! Please send good thoughts to the schools who desperately need things to improve.

Día de los niños

This past Saturday was Día de los niños, Día de los libros, and man, was it a lot of work! It was also really fun! This ‘Day of the children, Day of the books’ is in its 14th (or so) year here in Austin, and ACEE has been involved for 12 of those years. The AmeriCorps volunteers make up the bulk of the manpower that help this event run smoothly. In years past, the event has served over 3,000 people. Each child leaves the event with 2-4 books (in Spanish or English) and a day of fun memories. In order to make that happen, however . . . it was a lot of work. 

For our meeting on Friday, we started to set up the St. John’s Community Center for the grand event. We stuffed bags of freebies, made signs, glued posters, cut table cloths, etc. We also covered the gym floors and set up the tables. Mostly we just did manual labor for very, very cheap. Saturday was the real work. 

We all arrived by 8 a.m. ready to get down to work. Breakfast tacos were graciously provided for us so we could have good fuel to start the day. Once we hung all the signs, set out the bags, and got our volunteer assignments, the event was on! My job was unique: I dressed up as a cartoon character named Miguel. The costume head was very heavy and hard to see through, so my friend, Sheena, led me around and spoke for me. The reactions of the children were quite hilarious. I gave high-fives and hugs and took many pictures. The hardest part was trying not to laugh at the situations, because of course I couldn’t talk at all. My voice wouldn’t match the cartoon character’s voice on the show. I did pay my dues in the afternoon, though. I led Sheena around as she was dressed as Miguel and did allllllll the talking. 

Things ended and we cleaned up everything like champs. The most difficult part was rolling up the floor covering. It was like rolling up a giant, very flat rug that was filthy. It was lumpy and way thicker than it should have been, but we got it all picked up eventually. Overall, it was a very successful day even though the budget was much smaller than in previous years. Families came, had fun, and left with great books to take home and read.

a day OFF!

Today is Friday, and thankfully we have the day off. The schools have built-in “bad weather” days and if they don’t use them we get to have them now. This made for a short and exciting week for me. Monday and Wednesday were normal school days, but Tuesday and Thursday were both different than usual.

On Tuesday, I took a trip down to Texas State to recruit members for next year. Another tutor and myself, along with one of our supervisors, took a mini-road trip and spent the day talking about the program we all know and love. This was the first year for Texas State to host a nonprofit career fair and it went very well. We spoke to about a dozen serious prospects and I hope they do indeed apply. We also talked to numerous other people interested in a job in the nonprofit industry. I like to think we educated them all about AmeriCorps in general and what a great program it is.

Thursday was more fun than it was work. The Literacy Coalition of Central Texas was holding its 6th annual Adult Spelling Bee fundraiser and since they sponsor our ESL evening classes, we supported them by attending. The (free) food was delicious, the atmosphere was fun, and the spelling was amazing! I only correctly spelled about 6 of the words (including parfait, gazpacho, and zucchini), but we had a lot of fun guessing the spellings of all the other words. The turnout at the event was amazing, and I hope they raised a great amount of money for their cause.

In between all the exciting events of my week, I was still tutoring away. I chose to have two sessions with my lowest student this week and I have to admit, it was a bit frustrating. We were covering the concept of singular vs. plural and it was just NOT clicking in her head. As patient as I was trying to be, it still wore me out. We had two lessons about it so far, and I can forsee at least two more. The hard part is that plurals are just not a part of her vocabulary. When she speaks, it is only in broken sentence fragments and incorrect tenses. These are the days when you have to remind yourself of your “circle of influence.” I can only control what I tell her and how I react to situations. I cannot change the way she speaks overnight or how others at home talk to her. She desperately needs to be immersed in correct English usage so she can learn to hear what’s “right” and what isn’t. I cannot do that. All I can do is explain over and over and over again the concept and how it is used. So that is what I will do.

I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend! Safe travels and lots of candy!