Volunteering - Saturday Science Education Academy

Last month I signed up to be a volunteer in a program called "Saturday Science Education Academy," or SSEA. I heard about the program through a biomedical graduate student listserv. After learning more about the program I decided I wanted to get involved.

The SSEA started up a year or two ago, and is organized by Jay Gardner, the lab coordinator for one of the virology faculty at Penn. The program functions as a special, outside of school opportunity for kids in the 2nd, 3rd and starting this year 4th grade to get extra, hands on experience in science. It is specifically open to kids in the West Philadelphia school systems, which I will note is a public school with predominantly black students from a variety of backgrounds. The program runs for three six-to-seven week sessions, meeting every Saturday during the session for about two hours. Kids come based on interest in the program and are separated by grade for the activities. The SSEA works with the kids by providing numerous hands-on activities and directed learning as a way to expose kids to the scientific method and to teach them basic scientific principles. Jay meets with teachers to develop the curriculum to complement what the kids are learning in class.

I got really interested in the program for a couple of reasons. Primarily, I like to teach and tutor, and I want to get as much opportunity as I can to develop my teaching skills. Getting exposed to a younger group of students will help expand my skills and my ideas about teaching. I also saw this as a way to help out in the community. I don't have a good history of volunteering and I think it's time for me to get out there and do something.

I also want to mention that the listserv that tipped this off to me functions through the EE Just Biomedical Graduate Student Society. The society is named after Ernest E Just, a black scientist at Penn, and is a group made up of graduate students in the biomedical sciences from historically under-represented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics/Latino(a)s, Native Americans). I don't normally get involved in these kinds of groups because I don't have a strong association with my Hispanic roots. But, it is a well known fact that for whatever reasons, it is around the fourth and fifth grade when African American kids start to diverge in academics and social skills and you can track those students who will finish school and those who will drop out. While the factors involved in this can be debated, the statistical truth is very hard to refute. I saw this as an opportunity to not only help out in the community, but to get involved at a critical juncture in students' lives where their interest in science and learning might get tossed to the side in the face of other social pressures at home and at school.

So far I've had two sessions with the students, and it's been a great experience (and challenging!). We generally put two grad students per grade level, and this session I will be involved with the second graders (we don't come every week, so each grade will see up to four or five different teachers throughout the session, but we generally get one grade to help facilitate teaching). This session the second graders are learning about balances. Over the course of the session they will explore the concept of balance (what is a fulcrum?), weight, and measuring. We also introduce them to parts of the scientific method like observation and hypothesis.

The first session I had with students was relatively easy; I had another grad student helping me, and we only had two students, a boy and a girl. I tried my best to guide the kids through the lesson by asking questions instead of just teaching them, which was kind of difficult at times. They stayed on task for the most part but we did have to sometimes get them back on track or make concessions (like shorten the amount of reading and have more hands-on activity). All in all it wasn't so bad, and I even had fun.

The second session was a little more...exciting, ha ha. I was the only student teaching the second graders, and I had not two, not three, but six students. I tried to suppress the mini heart attack I had as I guided the tiny tykes up to the classroom. Fortunately, I was granted an angel in human flesh (i.e. a parent volunteer) who sat in my class and helped me manage all the personalities (and once she got an idea of what the activity was she also helped with that, although that wasn't her primary role).

It was a very different experience, partly because I was the only teacher and felt more in command of how the activities were going to be presented, and also because I had to deal with a greater variety of...personalities. One boy in particular, Mohammad, just LOVED to talk. He would stay on task for maybe two minutes and then as his attention moved elsewhere he would start talking about other things (like recent events at school, at home, a movie he saw, etc). I had to repeatedly bring him back on task, especially because he would then get other students distracted as well. I tried my best to be as flexible as possible and not authoritarian. Eventually, though, I knew I needed to convey to Mohammad that I needed him to stay focused and stop interrupting the class. I was reviewing what they had learned about balances and Mohammad started going off again. So in order to diffuse the situation I stopped what I was doing and said, "So Mohammad, you seem to like to talk about all sorts of things. Can you help remind the class what you learned about fulcrums?" Some of his classmates started giggling and Mohammad grinned sheepishly for a moment. He did finally offer one or two ideas that were more or less correct and I took it from there. This little moment awarded me about...five minutes of interrupted control before I lost it again. I realized later that this particular method of discipline might not necessarily work for all students (especially very sensitive ones) and that there probably wasn't any one method that works well all the time. It made me think even more about how teachers learn to deal with their students' behaviors, and I am beginning to develop an even stronger respect for the hard work they put into their jobs.

Even with an adult's help it was much more difficult to get through the activities just because there were so many more students. But they all seemed to have fun and hopefully learned something, which is the whole point anyway, so I felt it was a successful lesson, if more draining for me. And I've been learning a lot as well. It's harder with a larger group of students because you get a broader range of aptitudes and interest levels, but trying to manage this can be rewarding. I've noticed that a large proportion of the students are Muslim, which has been a great experience for me; many of the girls come in with head scarves (I'm pretty sure they were hijab, but I am completely illiterate in Muslim practices I couldn't tell you for sure). I've had the great pleasure of learning pronounce such colorful names as Sukainah, Ahmed (pronounced Ak-med), and Jermirr. It's been a great learning experience for me.

So far I like it a lot and am planning on continuing to do it for the next two sessions after the winter break. It provides a nice break from the serious business of studying, ha ha.