I’m really struggling coming up with what to write about for this fifth and final blog, because this blog feels like a goodbye that I’m not ready for. Dramatic, I know, but this short semester with ACH has been an absolutely amazing one, and I’ve learned so much about what it means to be an educator, but also about what it means to work within a community that is so much different than my own environment. I went into this internship scared out of my mind that the other instructors wouldn’t like me, or that I wouldn’t be able to connect with any of the kids, since they aren’t the age range I normally choose to work with, but now I’m sad to say goodbye.
I’ve written about this in a previous blog, but because of the pandemic, I hadn’t had a chance to step into a classroom as an education student, and it genuinely had me second guessing whether or not teaching was something I really wanted to do. But working with these students has renewed my excitement for the profession. I’ve been learning the importance of advocacy for students, whether it be through standing up for the student who has managed to be pushed through the system despite not understanding how to read, or for the student who doesn’t like her skin tone. The kids need adults, need teachers who are on their side, and being at ACH has taught me some of the ways I can do that, while also showing me I have so much more to learn.
Unrelated to the rest of my blog, I was able to bring in some of my own college projects to the ACH students earlier this week. I had a robot assigned to me for a tech class, and was tasked with creating battle armor out of a red solo cup for my robot. I brought this project to the ACH kids, and had them help me in making my armor, and we then got to steer the robot through the hallways. It was really exciting to lead them through a project on my own and see them getting just as excited in my college projects as I am in their art projects.
Building Bridges 