I have been living and working in Richmond now for almost 2 months. Overall it has been a wonderful time. There have been times of great fun, exhaustion, realization of great injustices and deeply rewarding experiences.
I would like to chronicle my longest day of work yet.
5:00 a.m. wake up, breakfast, prepare for my two classes: physics and physical science
7:15 Drive the bus pick up students for school.
9:00-12:00 I teach two classes and work one-on-one with a student
12-1 Lunch
1-2:30 grade papers, prepare for next day
2:30 -3:00 Driving the bus again, instead of dropping student off at their homes most come to my house to help us prepare for after school tutoring.
3:30-4:30 I had a student absent on a lab day so I act as his lab partner for an hour to catch him up, school is never ending.
4:45 Drive bus again to pick up kids for after school tutoring. We have some time to play outside, have snack time, and then pair up kids and volunteers one-on-one to read books and answer reading comprehension questions. This time can be pretty stressful because I am in charge. When the kids misbehave I have to be a disciplinarian which is not fun but when they behave well it is a blast to read and interact with them.Today is a special day because when kids do well at tutoring they earn "bones" which
means we will take them out to eat or get ice cream. Today after tutoring we are taking about 25 kids to Denny's.
6:30 drive bus to take kids home
7:15 go with kids who earn bones to Denny's
7:45 you should see the look on the waiters faces when 6-7 "grownups" like me walk in with 25 kids. It was a blast to spend time with the kids at Denny's.
because of our large group we didn't get our food until 8:45 or so and on the way home we ran into traffic and had to drop kids off at their homes so at
10:00 p.m my work day has ended. Reflecting back it was a great day. The hours were long but it was fun. Before I started working here i wasn't sure that i liked being around kids. Although sometimes I just want to be around older people, it has been great to have the opportunity to invest in the lives of so many kids.
It is at this time that I realize I have to wake up in 7 hours to do it all again. :) 17 hours in one day...not bad.
