This week I was uanble to volunteer because of a continuing illness. In my at home travels I stumbled on an interesting movie about a young woman named Liz Murray. This is a true story. Liz was born to drug addicted parents who neglected her and her sister. They also lived in squalor. Eventually she had to drop out of school and became  homeless at the age of 15 on the streets of New York City. While still living on the streets she returned to high school at age 17. She was admitted into a gifted program and graduated number one in the class while still being homeless and working a nightime part-time job. She graduated within 2 years and received a full scholarship to Harvard despite all the odds against her. Liz also had a great sense of family and nursed her mother during her fight with HIV for which she lost. The film is called Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story. There is so much more to this story. Today she lives in NYC and brings her message to help empower other teens. She has also been involved in opening a charter high school for homeless teens in NYC called the Broome Street Academy. I am providing the web link to read about this amazing young woman and the academy. It is http://manifestliving.com/ Hope some will travel through website and see what can be accomplished despite the odds. 

This week I returned to the school where I have been volunteering. It was a much better experience. The students were calmer and I was able to aid the teacher by working with some struggling students. One of these students did not want me to help the other student and became very angry. He would put on his backpack and said he was going home. The teacher took the situation in hand and did not feed into his anger. He finally settled down and finished his lesson. This child has many anger issues that I observed the last time I was there. The plus to my experience for the week was the reception I received from the other students. They were happy to see me and I received many hugs. The teacher was able to keep the students more engaged in their lessons and it was more productive than the last time. She is also starting to trust me and I feel we are going to develop a working relationship that will benefit the class as a whole. Also my sister-in-law and I donated snacks. The teacher was so appreciative and stated that is the first time for this type of donation. I am starting to enjoy my journey and will continue to volunteer.

This week I was ill and was not able to resume my volunteer activities. I did however find an interesting movie that fits into this class. It was called A Smile as big as the moon. It was based on a group of special ed students in the public school system who had aspirations of going to space camp in Huntsville Ala. Their teacher Michael Kersjes was the driving force because he believed that his kids should discover a world outside the classroom. He was successful but not without many obstacles such as funding,  school and community support and Space camp itself. He did not give up and his kids were the first group of special needs students to be accepted in 1989. A local business man donated the $50,000 dollars needed and the rest was awesome. Since then he started a foundation Space is Special, Inc that has been responsible for sending 2,600 special needs kids to space camp since 1990.  If anyone reads this blog you can go to smileasbigasthemoon.com/author and read about this amazing educator. Wouldn't it be great if this could be a possibility for urban learners also.

Urban Vounteer Experience

     This week I started my volunteer hours at a local elementary school in a high risk area. I live in a county that doe not fall under the category urban but many of the children live in a low socioeconomic area that mirrors an inter-city setting. I was assigned to our kindergarten class of 15 students with the ages varying from 5-7 years. The students were very hyperactive and the teacher was implementing interventions to calm them down. She told me one student was new and was disruptive plus his cousin was in the class who was disruptive. I was asked to work with a 5 year old student whose mother only took him to school 2 days per week and he was so far behind. He needs a lot of one on one and the teacher cannot give that to him all the time. As I worked with him it was apparent that he could only repeat the alphabet to the letter F and could not identify most letters. By the end of the day he did not want me to leave. During quiet time he asked me if he could lay his head on my shoulder. I was a little taken aback but soon it was recreation time. The teacher told me that she does not think he gets too much love at home. Also during the course of the day many of the other students gave me hugs and joined my mini study group. As I was leaving I received more hugs and was asked when I would be coming back. There is so much more for me to observe and learn and I am going to continue my journey with these students. I know I will learn so much from them.
Robin Pollard