Cedar River Side Essay, Research Paper

Cedar Riverside School

In the spring semester of 2000, I volunteered at Cedar Riverside School for my effective writing class I was taking with Joan Thompson. Volunteering at this school, I experienced criteria that was good and bad that might influence another person’s decision on volunteering at this school. Cedar Riverside School is a rewarding place to volunteer at. In this paper, I will talk about the strengths and weakness of volunteering at Cedar Riverside School.

When you volunteer at a school, a person would notice strengths and weaknesses about that school. One is, having an impact on children’s lives. When the teacher assigned me to work with a child, I taught them different ways on learning that they might not know. For example, if I was reading with a child and they did not know a word, I would breakdown that word for them. If the word were breakfast, I would have them read “break” than “fast”, then put the two words together.

Another strength volunteering at Cedar Riverside School was that a person did not need any training. The teacher would ask you if you could work with a certain child and you work with that child on the problems that were assigned. The only training that you have to do is within yourself to find the best way to work with these children.

The last strength that I noticed from working at this school was, I saw that the children and the teachers were glad that you were there. On the first day when I walked through the door and into their class they were so happy to have someone else helping the class. Every time that I came back to the school I received that same greetings and thanks.

There are also weaknesses at this school and they are, the hours to volunteer at this school are inconvenient to some people. The school times are from eight thirty in the morning, until one thirty in the afternoon. Therefore, if a person could not volunteer in the morning than you should not volunteer at Cedar Riverside School. Another way that this school could be inconvenient is there are no places to park and the only good way to get to this school is by foot.

Cedar Riverside School is a small school and there is not a lot of space to work with. When I had to take a child, that had problems staying on task, I would take this child into a separate room. This room is always used for spelling tests on the computer and by this people would come in and out of the room. This was diffcult to keep the child I was working with to focus on the material, and not on what else happening in the room.

Since Cedar Riverside School is a charter school, that means that it is open to any child in the district. This means that a child could come in at any time of the year. One day I walked into the classroom and I noticed that there were two new students in the class. That was surprising to me because when I went to school I do not recall student coming into the school year late. I thought how difficult it would be for that student coming into that school year that late, and for the teacher now has to work much harder to teach that late student to learn the material.

When I look at the time that I spent at Cedar Riverside School, I have learned many things that I will remember for always. I will remember the children’s smiles on their faces when the first time I walked into their classroom. The little work I did at Cedar Riverside School, I saw how it influenced the class and me.