Getting Started

Jumpstart has been such an interesting experience for me so far. I knew what I was signing up for, but the feeling of actually being in the classroom is something that cant be taught in the training events or posted under the job description. I was very nervous to begin Jumpstart session, as I have never worked with lower socio-economic students before., or been involved in any sort of education program in D.C. Prepping for our first session was definitely nerve-wracking. Even though I knew exactly how session was supposed to run, actually experiencing and implementing one for the first time would be difficult no matter what. 

This Tuesday in Jumpstart my team implemented session for the first time. Although it was slightly chaotic and overwhelming running through it the first time, it was a pretty successful day. What was the most overwhelming for me was reading time. We read the story, Oonga Boonga to our group of students for the first time. I was really excited to be with my students that I would have for the entire year, but was a little disappointed when they wanted to run around and not pay attention to the book. When I asked them, “are you ready to read this story with me?” and two of them replied with, “no”, I was a little taken aback. I did my best to run through reading like I had been practicing, but my students trying to run off and join other groups was more distracting than I had accounted for. I was frustrated because I was so ready and eager to start teaching these students. 

This Friday in session I was so shocked to see how much they actually remembered. My students were retelling the story to me and remembered the characters. The best part was although they had forgotten some of the vocabulary words since last session I retaught them during this reading time and by the end of the story they could retell them to me and were defining them properly. Similarly, when I was asking one of my students to tell me the name of each letter I was pointing to, although she got a lot of them right she missed a couple. I helped explain to her what the letter was and what it looked like, and when we did it again she named all the letters correctly. It made me feel really happy that she was focused with me and that I could teach her something. 

Also this week my center was art- mixing red and blue paint to make purple. It made me so excited to see how the students were thrilled with mixing the colors and watching it turn into purple. They kept on saying things like, “red and blue makes purple” or “purple comes from mixing red and blue”. I’m so happy that what I helped them with taught them something and that they were so energetic and excited to learn. I didn’t think I would start seeing successes in Jumpstart so early. I’m really encouraged and motivated after seeing what kind of impression my work and the work of my team leaves on these students and how were impacting their education.

~Christina Koch

Corps member

Team Joy 2