It’s important to think of how you will approach a school or teacher when you offer to volunteer. Take a minute to organize your approach.<\/p>\n
1. Do you know a staff member or a family of a student who attends the school? <\/em>If so, speak with that person. Ask about which classrooms want or need assistance. Many teachers want help, but haven’t developed activities they can hand over to extra adults in the classroom. Next year they may be ready to accept your help.\u00a0Until then, share you interests and time with staff members who are<\/strong> ready to include adult helpers.<\/p>\n 2. Do you have a specific skill you can share? <\/em>You don’t need to be an expert artist, engineer or author to help students draw, solve problems or write. If you have specific skills, let the school know.Perhaps you can teach mini classes on art or cooking or geography or writing.\u00a0Maybe you can organize a book sale, help with field trips or secure materials. It all helps.<\/p>\n Sitting with a student, listening or reading with that student is a vital task at most levels. The 1:1 time gives students the chance to practice their skills in a safe, private\u00a0setting. Young students may need help sounding out words; older students may need help locating main ideas, text headings and understanding italics words. Or, in math, young students may need help understanding how to subtract; older students may need help understanding how to decipher pertinent details in story problems.<\/p>\n 3. Do you have a specific day\/time\/length of weeks or months you have available to volunteer? <\/em>If so, let the school or teacher know. Most teachers plan weeks in advance. If you commit to every Tuesday from 9:30-11:00, they will often set-up activities designed for you in that time slot. That said, if you don’t show up, a group of students may be left without an adult guide, placing extra pressure on the teacher to come up with a last minute activity and needing a way to keep the group on task. That’s not the best way to support schools! Commit to work a consistent time (weekly, once a month, twice a year), arrive on time and come prepared.<\/p>\n 4. Do you need training\/guidance before you step in to assist? <\/em>Let the school\/teacher know if you have concerns or if you need suggestions to help you be successful in the classroom. Maybe\u00a0you are\u00a0unsure of how to handle misbehavior or how to start a group. Maybe it’s what to do if you have spare time before the students are dismissed, a time when you need to keep the students engaged with something beyond the planned activity. Don’t be afraid to be truthful. You are not a trained educator. No one expects you have all the skills needed to help out. Let the teacher know what you need so time and instructions be set aside to guide you and insure your success.<\/p>\n The three things all volunteers do<\/strong> to bring to volunteering are: an interest in working with students, patience and organization. Students as well as teachers\u00a0will appreciate your assistance once they realize you care about them enough to think through these basics before<\/em> you step into the classroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s important to think of how you will approach a school or teacher when you offer to volunteer. Take a minute to organize your approach. 1. Do you know a staff member or a family of a student who attends the school? If so, speak with that person. Ask about which classrooms want or need\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-thoughts","tag-volunteer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}