Elementary school - here I come - Part II

Early next week, I was ready bright and early to go visit the school the returning team leader was assigned. Although we hardly had much chance later in the program year to stay in touch regularly, I realized she was one of the most thoughtful and perceptive team leaders. She talked to me about the program, her school and the challenges she had faced the prior year. Her team leader had quit in the middle of the program and she was forced to take up the position. I sat there thinking to myself - Why would someone, especially a team leader quit the program mid way.. I say this specifically since at the time of writing this post, more than 50% of my team has quit the program and we are still 2 mos from completing the program! Frustrating, huh?

By that afternoon, I was a little more informed and little more confused and one of the reasons for my confusion as I would later discover was that the school I was assigned to followed a very different implementation of the reading improvement program than what this colleague of mine had to implement in her school.

That afternoon, my FC brought me to my school - Cool! My workplace for the next 9 months! The school was in a part of town I had not yet driven by but atleast it was easily accessible and looked great from the outside. We had a hurried up introduction with the site contact who  seemed to me that she was not very thrilled to  meet someone from AmeriCorps and mumbled something to the effect of - as long as you do a better job and are more professional than your predecessor, you will be ok! Great! This was unlike anything I had expected. We were given an alternate contact in the school who the site contact said could be our everyday site contact as she did not expect to have much time for my team or the program. This person she pointed us to immediately excused herself of anything to do with our program as she was going to be pretty busy with other things.. With more things unclear than I first entered the school, I broke for the day deciding to come back in a day or so to meet the teachers. Although we were two weeks away from starting the program officially, all team leaders had been encouraged to  start visiting their school sites, introducing themselves to the site contact and teachers and getting the place ready for their team members.

In the next day or so, I was back again at the school and introduced myself to each of the teachers in classrooms we were going to support. Teachers knew what this program was about and I had to tell each of them that I was yet to see my team but I was going to bring them by as soon as they started coming in and of course we were going to do our best to support each of their classes.  With all the introductions in place, I started coming to one of the classrooms on an almost daily basis to get to know the teacher and the kids. At the same time, the trainings from the program were happening and each one of them had been so carefully planned and timed

A week into these visits to the school, I felt very differently about the place. The site contact and the teachers were one of the most courteous and hard working bunch of people and I was looking forward to meeting my team and hoping they would enjoy their stint as much as I was.

One of the highlights of my first few days in the II grade classroom was how the kids made me feel welcomed in their classes. In a matter of couple of days, I had received a bunch of notes and pictures they drew for me that basically said how nice I was to them. I was thinking to myself - I've never stepped foot into an elementary school in the US before this and here I was already impressing the 7 year olds in just a few days... I must be doing something right. The instant gratification and the sense of happiness I felt each time when I helped a kid solve a small work sheet or taught them how to read a couple of sentences was just amazing. Most of these kids, I would learn throughout the year had very tough personal lives and faced challenges in more ways than one. There was a 7 yr old in my class who left the school over Christmas break and when she was there in this school had to take every Fri off so she could watch over her 2 yr old sibling since her mom had to go to work. Most kids in this school which was a Title I school received free breakfast and lunch which goes to prove the economic conditions of the families they came from. At this point the school deserves a mention. The principal and the staff and teachers worked so hard to bring in mentors and volunteers and shows and training for music and dance and sports that most of the times, I would forget this was an inner city Title I school.

Another one thing that always stood out for me on a daily basis was the inner strength and resilience each kid possessed.  They had a maturity beyond their age at the same time getting into petty fights with their 7 yr old classmates and bursting out in tears suddenly. There were few kids who left the school during the school year and some who joined and every time, I would miss the kids that left and I could never tell what the other kids felt. Did they miss their old classmates, did they understand why they had to leave, did they still keep in touch? I never discussed any of this with the kids or the teacher for fear of stepping over my limits as a volunteer in the school but I always wondered what the kids that left this school may be doing and if they were able to find such a good school and such good teachers.

Elementary school - here I come - Part I

The first meeting where I would meet other team leaders for the program year and be introduced to the Field Cordinator (FC) did not happen until the second week of September. By this time, I had grown tired of the summer in Richmond and whoever said that the weather would get better once we hit Labor Day weekend was wrong!

On a very warm Friday morning, I was back at the AmeriCorps office for this program - a bit earlier than scheduled and the first person I met was the FC. She was a very interesting person and we chatted up while she and I set up some tables and materials for the meeting. I still cant remember what my first impressions about her but I was thinking to myself that she would be the first female boss I've had! I would later learn that most other members and team leaders had been interviewed by the FC and so many members in the Corps including the ones that  were returning for a second year of service knew the FC more than I did.

The meeting was more of a training session for team leaders who the program staff wanted to be prepared and informed about the program, so when we met our members (for the first time) a couple of weeks later, we knew (sorta!) what we were doing. The day went by pretty quickly with lots of fun activities and team building exercises (By this time in my life, I had been through dozens of team building exercises and yet everytime, I ejoy them) and a smattering of information and thoughts from the program staff and past members about the challenges they faced the last service year. I kept a very open mind and my goal was to absorb as much information as possible and not make any conclusions or assumptions yet. I quickly learnt the names of the other team leaders and realized I had much more real life work experience than all of them. I didnt know if it was a good thing or bad thing.

By the end of the day, we had a big binder with program documents and manuals and we knew the schools we were assigned to. The FC had tid bits of information about each school, what worked in years past, what didnt work, who our school site contact would be , whether there would be a work area/ office space for AmeriCorps members etc. It was one of the most valuable piece of information that I received that day. When my turn came, I was eagerly waiting for some exciting information about the elementary school I was being assigned to (since I could not figure out from the map where it was even located!!).. In summary, my school site contact for me would be the Asst Principal of the school who required a lot of professionalism from the members and in the last couple of years, the program members and especially the team leader had left a lot to be desired in that department. So, inputs from my FC to me was - Dress professionally and be professional always and I was thinking to myself - how do you do it otherwise? I would later learn in bits and pieces that the school had not had a very good experience with the members and one of the things I had to do during the service year was to reverse the reputation of AmeriCorps at the school. GREAT!
One other thing that happened at the end of the day was that each new team leader was paired with a returning team leader based on the similarities in schools they were assigned, the challenges they might face during the school year etc. Also, our FC was going to bring us to each of our schools in the following week to introduce us to the site contact who in turn could be our main point of contact for most things in the school

With all the information and a date set with a returning team leader to visit her school, I was all set to begin my journey ...

I want to touch human lives - How I joined VCU AmeriCorps...

It was a few days after the longest road trip of my life and I was spending the warm June morning in the Richmond Public Library.  I was officially still on my break although I was beginning to think about volunteering and non profit organizations.  The one thing I knew when I was searching for non profit organizations to volunteer with was - I wanted to work on something that touched human lives - Right! Wasn't the very essence of most non profit organizations to touch human lives?? Ok, I needed something more focused and a little more concrete than that although I realized that I had a good enough reason to start off.   Since I was on my break, I had every reason to take my time to figure out things! Over lunch, that day, my husband brought me a bunch of printed material that contained a list of non profit organizations in Richmond and little did I know that one of it was going to take me very soon to a step closer to touching human lives! Ofcourse the first thought that came to my mind was (remember I had lived near Boulder for several years...)Why did he have to waste so much paper? He could have just sent me an email with all that information!! I was looking through the sheets when VCU AmeriCorps caught both our attention and by that evening I had application forms from the organization.

I had never heard of AmeriCorps and what was this VCU AmeriCorps?? After several hours of research that would cause my head spin with information, I was convinced that this was a good organization to atleast send my details to. What was the harm in sending them my details and so I promptly did exactly that.

The first thing that impressed me (in a long list of things that would impress me about VCU AmeriCorps) was the application form. Very thorough and to top it, I was asked to write a short essay on why I chose to apply. Neat..In the next few days, I was at the VCU AmeriCorps office interviewing with the Program Director and a team (now former) leader! The office was very different from the work place I was used to and I kept telling myself - this is where my journey to touch human lives is going to start! The interview was very pleasant and for the first time in a few months, I was actually excited about the kind of professional opportunities this (volunteering) gig would provide me with!! I came away thinking - Wow - I never knew these things about education, especially elementary school education and two thoughts I left with  after the interview were - I dont really know all that I will be doing but I think it will be pretty cool to be doing something related to elementary school kids and boy is this program  pretty structured  or what and thats what I needed - a structured introduction to working in non profit organizations!

A few days later, I had an offer for a part time team leader position. I was pretty excited - a volunteering job that actually paid a stipend and educational reward, the opportunity to work with and manage a team, work with school kids and to top it all off - it was part time!! I had lost much interest in going back to the stresses of my 15 hr work days which used to be a norm in my previous job and felt this opportunity was great and the timing could not have been better! But what was I going to do the next several weeks until the service year with AmeriCorps actually began.. Continue my break and enjoy the summer doing the things I had always wanted to do but never had time for!!

While on my break, I read a few interesting books on non profit organizations and volunteering but one book that actually inspired me and convinced me that I had indeed chosen the right thing to do by making a move from Corporate America to the social sector was "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas". I would recommend the book to anyone who needs insights into the challenges and successes of the non profit world. 

Just after the July 4th holiday weekend, I received a very nicely written up offer email from the Program Director and it struck me that if I took this position, I would be starting my journey towards a potential career in non profit organizations and most people I would work with in this position would be less than 10 years old! I knew I was ready for a change but as with all big decisions for most people, there was a lot of excitement and ambiguity for me although in my gut, it felt that I was going to make the right decision by going ahead and accepting the offer. Within a couple of days, I had accepted the offer and YES I was going to touch human lives and make a difference!