Chester Community Fellowship Reflection
The Chester Community Fellowship allowed me to open my eyes to the truth behind a misunderstood community. The strength and resilience in the people from Chester, especially the kids, towards dire circumstances is awe-inspiring. The kids are curious, creative, and intelligent; there is no doubt the future is bright when you look at them. I am honored to work with Science for Kids which has had such a tremendous impact thus far. When the program started in 2004, there were no science labs in Chester and at one point only 2% of the kids were reading at grade level. Now the kids I worked with blew me away, as they were not even in high school yet but now they have the mastery of a college student or even know more than the average college student about science.
During the Chester Children’s Chorus summer program, I’m apart of four different classroom settings Monday through Thursday. I begin the day in Science 5 with the oldest, skilled, and most motivated kids. This class is focused on cancer and development, we are also delving into bioethics and solidifying the kid’s knowledge on the fundamentals of biology. I am a teacher’s assistant in this class so I provide one-on-one help with the students during their activities, while investigating with microscopes, and facilitating class discussions. Following this is another science class with the younger kids, rising 5th graders in Science 1 which aims to engage and excite the kids about biology. I am a researcher in this class so I observe the kids and take extensive notes on the topics they talk about and frequent behavior. I also was trained to interview the kids and analyze their work in class and code their interview responses. My second half of the day consists of dance, which I am also a teaching assistant for the a Hip-hop and lyrical dance class with the older 6th grade girls. Lastly, I finish off my day aiding the youngest kids I work with, the energetic rising 4th graders in African Dance. I am so gratefulI get to work with these kids in disciplines I love and fully passionate about. Even on tiring, long days the kids make me glad I’m there at the end of the day.
During the Chester Children’s Chorus summer program, I’m apart of four different classroom settings Monday through Thursday. I begin the day in Science 5 with the oldest, skilled, and most motivated kids. This class is focused on cancer and development, we are also delving into bioethics and solidifying the kid’s knowledge on the fundamentals of biology. I am a teacher’s assistant in this class so I provide one-on-one help with the students during their activities, while investigating with microscopes, and facilitating class discussions. Following this is another science class with the younger kids, rising 5th graders in Science 1 which aims to engage and excite the kids about biology. I am a researcher in this class so I observe the kids and take extensive notes on the topics they talk about and frequent behavior. I also was trained to interview the kids and analyze their work in class and code their interview responses. My second half of the day consists of dance, which I am also a teaching assistant for the a Hip-hop and lyrical dance class with the older 6th grade girls. Lastly, I finish off my day aiding the youngest kids I work with, the energetic rising 4th graders in African Dance. I am so gratefulI get to work with these kids in disciplines I love and fully passionate about. Even on tiring, long days the kids make me glad I’m there at the end of the day.
Outcomes of the Fellowship
Adapting to Various Roles
My role in the workplace dramatically varied depending which class I was in and my purpose within the classroom setting. I had to adapt my degree of involvement and what kind of involvement depending on if my position. For example, as a teachers assistant my job was to help the kids with their activities and experiments in Science 5 but as a researcher in Science 1 I was strictly observing the kids and had to keep a distance from them and have as minimal interactions with them as possible to not skew the data we collected. Similarly for the dance workshops, the older girls were more independent and would only need guidance with critiques on the group as a whole; However, the younger kids need me to be more hands on and on the dance floor to direct them and work with individual kids on the moves.
Grasping New Skills Quickly
Whether if I was performing research, doing office work, or assisting in teaching I always had to be agile with any task thrown my way. As apart of the research team, I had to learn many new tasks such as interview protocols, transcribing data, perform coding, and even creating new coding schemes. I also had to be quick on my feet when helping the kids when they had questions that required a promptly answer or did a task wrong and I needed to use my problem solving skills to fix the issue as fast as possible.
Communication skills
I was not only interacting with people from a new community, but also various kinds of people on a day to day basis. I had to be cognizant of the kind of language I used and whom I used it with. I would had to fluidly switch between different vernacular and be precise about the words I use so I can clearly convey myself to either a professor, child from Chester, or a fellow Swarthmore student.
Looking on to the Future
I plan to still be involved with Chester next semester by continuing the research and traveling to the kids and performing a third round of interviews. Also, I am currently adding a course on Gun Violence Prevention in Peace and Conflicts Studies to my schedule which may have a project that works closely with an organization in Chester.