My first three and a half weeks this summer was spent at Woodward Elementary. I worked with 22 “fabulous and amazing” girls in Ms. Hargroves class who have a “sunshiny yellow attitude”. During the year, I usually go on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It was funny, the first week when I showed up on Monday, the girls kept telling me that I was early. I told them that I would be with them everyday until the year ends. It took them the whole week to become accustomed to it because everyday, someone never failed to either tell me I was early or asked why I was there.

My first full day was pretty interesting because I got to see how elementary students favor particular students as a group. There was a 5^th grade States competition and there were certain students that acquired more cheering than the others. However, students were supportive of each other.

I often times ran out to get lunch for the teacher and I while the girls were at lunch. To my surprise they didn’t congregate around the back table as much as I thought they would, like my other students did in another class.

By the second week, they were use to my being there all day. I graded a lot of papers and helped the teacher catch up on things she was not able to do, due to time restrictions. She was a great mentor; I walked around during lessons to help the students who were struggling, I got to help the teacher teach, read to the girls, facilitated centers among other tasks.

The girls had to take the FCAT writing and they kicked ass on it. No one made lower than a 3. Ms. Hargroves’ class scored the highest overall compared to all other 4^th grade classes at Woodward.

During all of this, I was taking two summer classes, one for my major (Theories of Personality) and one for my minor (Principles and Methods of Instruction for Diverse Learners). In my P&M class, we were paired up and had to create four lesson plans, two each, that flowed with each other. Even though I do not really plan on being a teacher, I really love the atmosphere of the classrooms I’ve worked in. However, I realized through this class and lesson planning that I could never be a teacher because I hate lesson planning. Getting the resources together and planning a successful lesson was not something I enjoy. There is so much available to me, it was hard to choose what I wanted to include and it bothered me that I couldn’t use everything. And the fact that there is a time restriction on my lessons made it even more difficult. If I could spend time in the classroom without the required lessons, I would have no hesitation. That wouldn’t be very productive though.

Something kind of funny/embarrassing happened…classes started the 11^th. For some reason, I thought my class started at 4:00 (that’s when my other class starts). I stayed at Woodward until school ended at 1:30. When I finally got reception, I got a text from a friend who was taking the same class asking where I was. I had an ‘oh shoot’ moment. I was debating whether or not to walk in late since there were only seven of us in the classroom. I got there a little after two and the professor says, “You must be Linh.” I was the only person who showed up late…which never usually happens. Great first impression, right? Luckily for me, she is a really nice professor and nothing really happened after that.

I got a chance to volunteer at the same time with Courtney Williams. Best thing ever. Before then, we really never hung out. Who knew she was so cool. We really got a chance to bond those past few weeks. We made 90 cookies for the students one day in a house with a frisky cat…neither of us are fans of cats…Also we didn’t know where anything was because it wasn’t in our house. It was a big fiasco but entertaining, nonetheless.

I really did not come across any problems the first month of service. It was really nice to follow my girls to the end of the year. The last day was somewhat emotional. The girls brought thank you presents to their teacher and we had a fun day. I was trying to hold back tears as they gave me a hug before walking out the door at the end of the day to the beginning of summer. I was really sad, knowing that my girls won’t all be in the same classroom again next year. I built really close relationships with some of them, seeing them grow and mature throughout the year was really inspiring for me. The dynamics of the classroom was really awesome and the personalities of the girls meshed really well together. I just hope next year’s class will be just as good!

In the midst of the classroom, SLI ’11 took place in Albany, NY. Savannah, Jennifer, Maverick, Alex and left DeLand at 6 AM on May 31^st and flew to NY. Maverick, Alex and I have never been so it was pretty cool…even though it wasn’t exactly the city. SLI was full of energy and new ideas. The workshops I attended were really informative and interesting. We formulated a lot of new ideas that we hope to implement into our Bonner Program this upcoming year. Alex and I attended the senior intern track and we are hoping that we can fulfill the duties adequately. We are both really excited to kick start the year with the ideas we have!