My Service to the Community

Community service is an essential part of the learning process of being a teacher. Often times as a teacher you aren't reward accordingly for your efforts in the classroom, so you should become accustomed to helping others without proper payment. Community service also teaches you to become selfless and to want to help others simply to help and not for being rewarded. I have always been one to do some sort of community service willingly. I found it to be a great way to get in tough with my community as well as other communities I might not have been familiar with. I attended my little brother's football games all season he plays for our town. The surroundings were quite interesting and watching all the parents and how the react and interact with each others and the game. It was also interesting to see the visiting team and how they fit into the "community" they were visiting, and how the home team welcome or not welcomed them. While visiting Arts High I had the pleasure of attending a staff meeting that was like a workshop in how to improve the school and the interaction between the teachers and students. Since thanksgiving every Wednesday from 3 to 5 I have been assistant coaching my grammar school's cheer leading team. Since it is a small Catholic school all the after school activities are run by volunteers. My little brother since attends the school and my mother is very active in its community so the school knows I have the a dance background and has asked me to donate my time. I found this experience to be quite fulfilling and have bonded with the girls and will continue to coach them for the rest of the season and prepare them for their competition in March. This experience has prepared me in two ways, it has prepared me in my field of teaching students an arts as well has how to interact and discipline students all while helping the community.

My Visit to Arts High

On November 28th, I had the pleasure of visiting Arts High. Since I wasn't initially assigned a teacher of my own I went with a classmate who shared my major. We are both dance education majors and were assigned to Mr. Ronnie Carney, one of the two dance teachers who work at Arts High. We were able to watch two dance classes one in the morning and one in the afternoon. In between the two classes we also attended a staff meeting where we were welcomed with open arms and were encouraged to participate. Our ideas and opinions were taken seriously and we were treated as true future educators. We also got a chance to have lunch and discuss the school and our inquiry question with Mr. Carney, he was accommodating and more than willing to answer any questions we had. I loved setting at Arts High all the students look very motivated and are very focused on their majors and so they are very well behaved, something I naively didn't expect in an urban setting. All the teachers seem to get along and even though we weren't assigned to them were very nice and welcoming to us as well. I enjoyed my experience at Arts High very much and would love to work in a place just like it someday. Mr. Carney said we were more then welcome to come back and help with rehearsals and their dance shows any time, and we have been doing so ever since. He and some students from Arts High even came to see our dance department performance this past week at MSU.