Serive Learning#2

My second service learning session started off with me leading the pledge of allegiance. To me this was a great site to see that they still showed respect for our country. Even those who could not speak English still stood up and respected the flag. Something that has really disappeared in the last few years at schools throughout the United States. After the pledge, I tested half the class out in the hall(one at a time)to see if they knew their times tables 1-10(they called buddy numbers). If they did not know them instantly I would come back to the ones they missed and made sure they corrected themselves before they left. I also gave them a post it note to take home with them for example: study 5X7.
The class as a whole did very well. My next task, was to test the other half of the class(that had not been tested earlier) on states and capitals. This was a little more complicated, but the students were motivated to do better and managed to stride forward. After this, I led the class out to recess on a cloudy, cool, crisp day. While I was outside some of the older kids constantly wanted me to play basketball, but I refused and decided to talk to a student in our third grade class named Mohammad. We actually began talking about global warming, which he knew a little about and we both agreed that it does not seem to be that important of a topic right now in the world. Especially after seeing record lows last year in the winter and what seemed like a fairly mild summer. After the global warming discussion Mohammad, a very sophisticated eight year old, from Pakistan told me how hard the last year had been for him. He moved from Pakistan, where he knew everybody in his small town to a city where he knows nobody. Kind of like big fish, little pond in Pakistan to the current little fish big pond here. Furthermore, he stated that it has been very difficult to make friends over here. Surprisingly, the child spoke English very well. Besides that he said that kids are more attentive and better behaved in class over here than in Pakistan. This was my first time ever chatting with somebody from another country and I really understood this kid's feelings and current position. After chatting with Mohammad, I then talked to several other students in our class about bullying around the school. They said it has been very minimal, which made me ecstatic because I had a heck of a time with bullies in the early grades because I was always one whole year younger then the youngest student.
Following recess it was lunch time and I was back to work making sure the cutting in the lunch lines was terminated. After lunch, we dropped in the library for pictures. The library was small, but very tidy, along with being nicely furnished, and well-equipped with the latest technology like smart boards and new apple computers. This summed up by second visit and as left the school I continued to feel great about Red Cedar, the class, and myself as I looked forward to my third visit even more.