Teaching a small group of first graders by Robert

Teaching a small group of first graders by Robert - January 2024 Scholarship Essay

The biggest contribution to my community I would say is teaching a group of 1st graders. Me and my classmates wanted to do some sort of charitable work before our semester was over. We had a bunch of different ideas but the idea we settled on was teaching 1st graders teamwork by making them team up together and build a tower using marshmallows and spaghetti. The idea was to have each person lead a small group of 3-4 1st graders and whoever could get the tallest tower wins. Next, we had to figure out which elementary school we were gonna go to. We landed on Cleveland Elementary as the school we were gonna go to. A couple of days later we went to the school to teach. Here is how it went.

When we first got there we went into this classroom, the kids were all set up, and we had all the materials ready. I will say I was nervous because I am not a person who likes to be the center of attention with crowds. So there was a small nervous sweat going on. Luckily we all went into our separate groups. When I first met the kids, it was smooth sailing. We did say our name and 1 fact about you hellos. After that, I told them what we were trying to do. We started by just getting used to the materials and what we wanted to do as a group. Now I couldn’t necessarily help build the tower with them, but I can give them direction, like a leader. So at the start of everyone's building, they all sort of took their own paths into making a tower. Here is where my first dilemma happened and this would be a reoccurring theme. They were all going out their separate paths so I had to find a balance between being strict and not too strict and being fun but not too fun. I wanted them to have fun but we also needed teamwork and form so we could build this tower. I chose a little bit more on the fun side and started pointing out how this kid's tower can connect to this kid's tower. We started to slowly work together.

Then my final problem happened. One kid started to wander off and create his own tower again. Like most kids, you start to veer off course. I asked him if he wanted to add that on. I could tell it was some sort of base he was making. He said he wanted to make his own thing. I said, "This is a teamwork thing, why don’t you add it to it?" He again repeated he wanted to build his own tower. So seeing that this wasn’t gonna lead far, I decided to sort of branch out and speak up. I said, “If you think about it, everyone has built their own tower, but we combined it to make it a super cool tower.” I gestured to him and said,” You built the base”. I gestured to another kid and said, “ You built up the tower and created a strong inside presence in the tower”. I finally gestured to one more kid and said,” You built the outside area that helped stabilize the tower and keep it upright”. After I said that we finally started to work like a team.

A couple minutes later our time was up. Everyone checked their towers and it ended up being a tie. So we started cleaning up, it wasn’t meant to be another teamwork exercise, but it was much easier getting everyone to help clean up and help each other. As we were cleaning up, I got told by one of the kids in my group that it was fun and got asked to babysit and asked if we would ever come back. I sort of laughed off the babysitter part because as a high school student, what do I say to a 1st grader that I have only known for about 1 hour to the question of can I babysit them? I did take it as a huge compliment because we all know kids have no filter so them saying that means a lot. I had to let him down slowly with the coming back part because more than likely I wasn’t gonna be able to come back unless we got the school’s permission. So I told him that I would talk to the boss and put in a good word for you. As I look back at it, I notice how much I was out of my comfort zone and I learned a couple of things. So as fun as it was for the kids, I think I had more fun and I would do it 10/10 times.