Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

• Julie Stevens--Ms. Garcia
• 626-290-5817--626-893-8460
• Rorimer Elementary

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?

• Julie Stevens is qualified to be my mentor due to her history of education and experience with children who have a difficult time learning. She has graduated from college with a degree in Behavioral Science, has worked as a preschool teacher at Santana high school where she worked with children who were born to teenage mothers. She has children who have disabilities and has had experience working with her own children as well as others. Mrs. Stevens is qualified to be my mentor because of her knowledge, understanding, and experience with children who have a difficult time learning.

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.    

• How much education does it take to be qualified for a teaching position at a high school?
• What style of teaching is most effective on a group of students?
• How do you properly educate a high school student so that they are prepared for college or the workforce right after graduation? 

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• When I tutoring children the most important thing I have learned was patience. The children that I’ve worked with often got distracted and I was constantly having to gain their attention and refocus them on the task at hand. Because these children were not my siblings it was hard to approach them in a way that would  not cause trouble, which made me take time to reevaluate the situation and come up with a different approach. Usually I would have to raise my voice at my own sisters but I had to be patient and remain calm. Patience is important to learn because I am able to learn self control as well as avoiding impetuous decisions. Children are more susceptible to listen to  adults who respect them and approach them calmly thus, making this the most important quality to learn when working with children. 

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

• I have decided to change my senior topic from special education towards high school education because of the students that I would be working with. It take a huge amount of patience to work with children that have disabilities, and I don’t have the tolerance to teach those types of children. Mentorship helped me decide which topic to focus on because it opened my eyes as to how much work and forbearance that I am not willing to put forth. Teaching special education is strenuous and I would much rather be able to educate students who I can interact with on a conscious level. Since My topic is changing my mentor will also change.