A Memorable Moment

  The most memorable moment I have had working as a Jumpstart Corps member occur red during one of my sessions. When we began the session, I had one child who seemed to have trouble focusing on the story I was reading to them. I tried to get her attention by using her name and asking questions to her specifically, it seemed to have little effect and I was also didn’t want to ignore the other children I was with. Though it was frustrating, I eventually began reading it much more enthusiastically and became more animate, such as making more sounds from the book, asking the child more questions, or giving emotion to the dialogue within the story. I noticed that my child soon began paying much closer attention to me and began asking me more questions and giving me answers when I asked them what they thought about certain passage or picture. I was surprised at how much progress I had made by the end of the book, when my child began excitedly telling me what her favorite part of the book was.

After reading, we began Circle time when I was able to help most of my kids sing along to the songs while also clapping and copying the motions we made. During this particular Center Time, I was part of the “Let’s find Out About It” group where we were helping the children to make paper fans. One of the girls was having difficulty with the activity and in frustration she threw her paper away and told me that she didn’t want to do the activity anymore. I encouraged her that it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed and helped her build the paper fan step by step. Eventually she was able to make one herself and was overjoyed when I asked her to fan me with it. As small as it was, helping this child to learn how to get over her frustration and to see how happy it made her filled me with a sense of accomplishment. This little activity provided for her a very positive experience, and also gave me my first glimpse of a change I had made in the classroom.

When the activity was over, I went over to my respective station, Reading, and sat down with a couple of children to read several story books to them. Surprisingly, none of the children gave me a hard time and they all seemed to enjoy the stories very much. When we gathered at the end for Sharing and Goodbye, I remember hearing my team leader ask one of the kids who I had read to if he would like to sit next to her. He said no, and said he wanted to sit next to me, which surprised me in a very good way, knowing that I had made an impression on the child (also allowed me to shoot my team leader a smug look). When we were saying our goodbyes and leaving, the girl who I had helped to make the paper plane walked over to me and hugged me while saying “Thank you Mr. Bryan!”.

To this day, that session remains one the most memorable due to all changes I saw making in the class through the children.

~Bryan Park
Corps member
Team Connection