Day Two

Day Two of blogging!

Today is the last day of the teaching week for me; I'm a part time teacher and my hours go from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Monday through Thursday.

I didn't take the time yesterday to explain where I'm teaching from. I teach out of Easter Seals Arc's building. Easter Seals is a non for profit organization which provides resources and support for people with disabilities. A lot of my trainees, I prefer not to use the term "student" to refer to them, come from other classrooms and programs Arc offers. Previously, in these other classes and programs, they would sometimes go out in the community to parks, businesses, museums, volunteering, etc. When the clients weren't out in the community they were either in their room working on individual goals, playing games, watching movies, or they were at the establishment's "workshop." The workshop is a work setting where the clients can earn money by getting paid to do various tasks; they're paid by the part so it's not a job the clients can make a living off of, but it is money in their pocket.

It's been a little difficult getting some of the trainees used to being in a classroom for six hours a day, but most have gotten used to it, and I try very hard not to make the classroom feel so much like a classroom. Ideally, if it were possible, I would take the trainees out twice a week for 2-3 hours a day to volunteer at various organizations, and spend 2 full days and 2 half days in the class room. I see three good reasons to go out and volunteer. First: it's always good to help your community, second: it's a way to gain some work experience and skills, third: it provides the trainees with a chance to interact and network with people in the community. I still put an emphasis on classroom work, but the trainees definitely look forward to the days when we go out.

Outings the class has gone out on so far has included: a walking trip to the strip mall across the street from our building to pick up job applications, volunteering at our local food bank, and a trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana's main library branch. Volunteering at the food bank has been a favorite activity for the class, they like being able to team up with their friends in the class and do hands on tasks like stocking shelves. A close second favorite was our trip to pick up job applications at a strip mall. The outing to the strip mall was my first outing so it was kind of messy. I try very hard to collect information that I can turn into data for The Literacy Alliance so I created a very crude form to keep track of where the trainees picked up applications from and if they turned them in in the future. I found a great evaluation sheet from a blog titled Empowered By Them that I copied and created for the future so that my trainees can evaluate the place we go in the future.

Right now my plans for outings are hindered due to the fact that one of the vans recently broke down, but thankfully Arc is working with me as best as possible to try and make the outings possible! The class is scheduled on Tuesday to go to a smaller library branch here in Fort Wayne and I'm going to take the class over to a large store called Earth Fare while we're out. I can't wait!