Final Thoughts on Coursework

When reflecting back over this course there were many things I enjoyed. The course readings, videos, and discussions were all insightful and thought provoking. I felt I really connected with all of Shaun’s videos. He is such an inspiring person and has led a hard life that he has learned from and is now teaching others about. I love how he took his incredibly difficult experiences and turned them into positive ways to learn and help others. During my own research for my course project I studied and researched the effects living in poverty has on children and their families. What I was surprised most to learn was that 20% of our children nationwide are living in poverty and that 9% of them are living in extreme poverty. These numbers really made me think about what we can do as teachers to help these children who are living in these difficult situations. My hope is through my research and future research I will be able to find more resources to help these students and their families. My ultimate goal is to find a way to give these families the help and resources they need to avoid living in poverty situations altogether. Being able to provide families with a list of local resources that are available to help them is a place to start. Many families in my local school district don’t know what is available to them or how to access what is. Through my research in this course I learned a great deal through one of my interviews about our local YMCA programs that help children in need and their families. One program in particular stood out to me called Y-TEENS.  This program provides group activities three days a week after school to sixth-eighth grade students who come from poverty living situations. Activities include: gymnastics, team sports, swimming, WII sports, and crafts. The program is always looking for energized compassionate mentors to provide great role modeling. I am very interested in becoming involved with this program as a mentor because it services an age group of children I don’t normally work with. My future aspirations include working with a wide age range of students in need not just children who are early childhood age. I feel that sometimes the middle school age group gets overlooked when needing help so I would like to reach out to that age range. Seeing children in need always motivates me. Whether that need is food, clothing, personal care, or academic support I feel that anyway I can help I would like to. Through this course I took a deeper look at how to assist families living in poverty in need of services for housing and food. Overall I have taken away many new ideas of how to help families, what their needs are, and most important what the lasting effects are on their children if we as teachers don’t get involved.