The End is Nigh!: Reflecting on my time with Junior Achievement

Welcome to my last blog, all you (2) people who have viewed it.  I appreciate it.  I have successfully completed all five Junior Achievement classes without any real problems.  I feel accomplished!  It was a really, really fun experience for me, largely due to the awesome people I had during this time.  I'd like to thank the Academy, Ms. Valero, who is an amazing teacher and has the patience of a saint, my fellow Junior Achievement volunteer Megan, and of course, the great group of crazy kindergartners I attempted to instill fundamental business principles into with only 5 classes.  I'm not sure how well that succeeded, but I think all of us had a great time.  

it's a shame that they're all so camera-shy...

One of my favorite things about Junior Achievement was just hanging out with the kids.  I love kids, and love how they can get excited about what, to us, seem to be everyday things.  But their excitement makes me excited, too.  Hanging around kids makes you feel like one, which just makes everything fun.  Plus, they appreciate my lame sense of humor, so everyone was happy.  In terms of my Spanish ability, I think it has helped a bit, especially in terms of figuring out how to not only breakdown more difficult concepts so children can understand them, but to do so in Spanish.  However, it was only 5 sessions, so it didn't have a huge impact on my Spanish speaking. If we had continued to do this program longer, I'm sure I would have noticed a bigger change.

Brittany with her completed activity book.  

And I think my love of teaching in JA ties into both my love for kids as well as the fact that I learned how to breakdown these concepts in Spanish for the kids, which I couldn't do before.  Teaching them was really fun because, although they can get fidgety at times (they are 5 and 6 year olds), they were really excited to see us every Friday, answer questions about the readings, and do the activities.  They especially liked to show us their finished activities--kids do love attention and praise!

I'm definitely going to miss these kids, even if they did only get my name right about half the time (apparently "Allison" is difficult to remember).  I can't really complain.  I'm horrible with remembering names, too.

Kindergarten camaraderie: Emilyn and Luis

Candid camera!   Traffic jam at the crayon station

Megan and kids

I've learned a lot during my time with Junior Achievement, and not just about Spanish. While I'm not sure just how much of the JA message of the importance of business, saving, money, etc. is to the community, the family, and yourself got across, I think it's a great idea to start this young.  Even if the kids don't actively learn something in kindergarten, they are being introduced to these important concepts at a young age, so that they are already slightly familiar when they are learning about it again as they get older.  I'd like to thank the Junior Achievement program and my SPN302 class for giving me the opportunity to do this.  Goodbye and goodnight.  

Lesson 2 and the Question of Bilingual Education

In the second lesson with our JA class, we discussed Angie and her trip to the carnival.  This section is mostly about learning about money, the importance of earning and saving money like Angie did, and then using the money to buy something, like Angie did for her Aunt Sarah.  We then did an activity in which we identified different coins--penny, nickle, dime, and quarter--and how much they were worth.

It's interesting the examine how, even though we are teaching this class in Spanish, it has a lot of bilingual elements.  First, obviously, it's a class taught by two people who are native English speakers learning Spanish, so English always manages to slip through now and then.  Furthermore, while our students speak both English and Spanish, most have one language they're stronger and weaker on. So every once in awhile, we'll be using two languages to describe a concept so everyone can understand.

I think bilingual education is important, especially as the world becomes increasingly interconnected.  Furthermore, some studies have shown that learning more than one language can help you become smarter, improving cognitive skills that aren't even related to language learning.  However, in many schools in the US today, language classes don't really start in earnest until high school or (maybe) middle school.  I myself started to learn Spanish in 8th grade, though it wasn't so much an overall bilingual education, but just Spanish classes 5 times a week for about an hour at a time.  And I remember these classes were pretty easy, rarely challenging, and therefore I didn't become as fluent as I could have.

Studies have shown that it's best for a child to learn a language while still pretty young, because it's during this time that a lot of the foundations for thinking, language, attitudes, etc. are solidified.  This is where bilingual education in the United States is lacking.

1st Lesson: Where Junior Achievement volunteers are made

Even after meeting the kids for the first time the previous week, I was still a little nervous for the first lesson.  The students had seemed excited to meet me and my partner the week before, but would they be as excited about our class?  I shouldn't have underestimated the excitement of children regarding new people and novel situations.  Since the class is made up of 5 and 6 year olds, I expected the normal fidgeting and talking that comes with a group of kids who enjoy being the center of attention and can't keep still for long.  Other than some normal kid behavior, they were fantastic!  Kids are always willing to answer the questions we ask them...even if it is just to tell us about the new dog they have or what jobs their parents have.  That day's story was "Robbie's trip to the farm."  They were interested to learn about the farm and what kind of jobs there were there, and very willing to talk about the animals someone would find on a farm.  My favorite part of the class, and I think theirs too, was when they drew their favorite animals.  The drawings were very imaginative and many of the kids were very creative in their use of colors.  They were intent to show us their drawings and tell us about their pictures.
While my partner and I spoke Spanish to the kids, as per the program, I'm not sure if the children really appreciated it anymore than if we had spoken in English.  Some of them responded with answers to questions that were a mix of Spanish and English.  However, it was very beneficial for me, as I rarely use Spanish in day-to-day conversations.  While I think our class went over well, especially for a first class, it was a bit awkward as we hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet.  With one class under our belt, the next one will be better!

Post JA class visit: thoughts and fears

I met the class this week and it was great to have a pre-class visit.  We got the meet all of the students without the added pressure of teaching them on the first day. Although, thinking about the first class, I'm a bit apprehensive, even though I'll  be facing a room of approximately 15 kindergartners.  I was afraid once all their eyes turned on me and it was my time to speak, all my Spanish knowledge would disappear and I'd just stare back at them, my mind completely blank.  Thankfully, that didn't happen, and I was able to get by and , hopefully, teach them a concept or two in my admittedly imperfect Spanish.  However, my Spanish knowledge combined with their Spanish as well as some broken English helped us get along just fine.
The teacher mostly teaches in Spanish, though afternoons seem to be largely devoted to learning English.    It's also the language that most of the kids used with each other and with us, though once in a while they would break out into English without prompting.
My experience with this class reminded me of most situations I've been in which included a group of young kids: loud, fun and always partial-chaos.  I taught Sunday school for a couple years, and have been babysitting since I was 10, so I was very familiar with the behavior I saw in the class, though I've never volunteered with or babysat children who spoke only Spanish.  The kids were enthusiastic to see new faces.  New is always interesting when you're 5 or 6!  Many of them loved to answer questions...even when their answered had nothing to do with the original questions.  But they were excited to see us, and seem excited about our future classes together.  I think this is going to be a really fun and different experience for me, and I like the idea of presenting more difficult concepts, like trade or business, to children through children's stories. It's a great way to begin fostering an importance of entrepreneurship and community involvement at a young age.

Bienvenidos a JA! Pre-class visit

Welcome to my JA blog!  Since I haven't met "my children" yet, this blog pretty much details my anticipation, as well as doing some background on the Junior Achievement program.
So, when I signed up for SPN302, I had no idea this would be a part of the class, but it's different than anything I've done before, so I'm really excited!  Through the program, my partner and I will be visiting a kindergarten class for about 5 sessions to teach a topic for an hour.  This year, the topic for the kindergartners is "Ourselves."  In Spanish, so I'm a little nervous.  However, since they are kindergartners, we should all have about the same amount of Spanish knowledge.  The Junior Achievement program as a whole is a program that sends volunteers into school to teach and to help impart values and knowledge that lead to more successful lives, like the importance of entrepreneurship and literacy.  We had a debriefing from our own JA rep, Hailey, who  gave us the rundown on what we will be doing, what are some things expected of us, of the teacher, etc.  She also gave us these handy little suitcases filled with our material for the next 5 classes.  I flipped through some of it, and it looks like fun!  But first we have to translate the material from English to Spanish.  We also got our assignments.  I will teaching Ms. Valero's kindergarten class at Sadler Elementary School.  Looking forward to it!