As Jumpstart, a team of corps members go into the classroom twice a week for two hours. These times with the children are meant to be beneficial for everyone, the corps members learn from the children and the children learn from the corps members. Each corps member gets a group of children for the year to work with and read to, and I have already seen my children improve.
On the second or third Jumpstart session, during Welcome time, where we practice recognizing letters in the children’s names, the two children in my group were starting to recognize that they had the same letter in each of their names. That was a huge step forward. Also the children had different ways of recognizing the letters, reading an lowercase a with a lowercase o. They would know similar letters and confuse them.
These children have taught me about their family, how they have baby siblings, how much they cry, what it is like to go to school, what they like to do, what they want to do, and why some things are important to them while others are not. This is all relative to their experiences. They have taught me about themselves and how excited they are for Jumpstart and willing to be our friends and listen and learn from us.
Being in Jumpstart means a ton to me. Knowing that you will have made a difference on a child’s life is no small thing. That kind of effect on someone’s life is something that all children need. They need to be loved, adored, and taken care of. There is no way around it. But life gets hard, money runs short, and sometimes that does not always happen. I recognize this. To be the extra helping hand in a child’s education or life is why I am a Jumpstart Corps Member.
~Mahali Schenkelberg
Corps member
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