First time Mentoring at Classic City High School:

       Experience:      For my first time even being at Classic City, I feet like I learned a lot. To be honest, I was extremely tired before I arrived at the high school, it had been a very long Monday already. But I was more excited than anything, so I powered through my exhaustion because I wanted to make a great first impression on the instructors and students. I was placed into an English Class with 6 students. 5 of these students were African American and 1 was Hispanic. The main instructor and I were both white, so I automatically felt the students were disconnected from me. Thankfully, the class was learning about a topic I enjoy and feel extremely comfortable with, mythology. Since the previous was MLK holiday and 2 snow days, the students were not thrilled to be back in class. The instructor, however, embodied everything I imagined a good teacher to be. She was energetic, insightful, and connected with the material and her students. For this class, we were reading a portion of the Odyssey, a very old, confusing, and lengthy epic. At the beginning of class, 3 of the 6 students were extremely engaged, they had a response to every question asked and very thoughtful commentary, while the other 3 sat rather quietly. Towards the middle of class, we were getting to an important part in the reading, and half of the class was either asleep or had their head down and the other half was silent and unengaged. The teacher tried countless times to try and wake these students and entertain them, but each attempt failed. Although it was the last period of the day, on a Monday, I was disappointed these students were so disconnected and uncaring. By the end of class, all the students were running out the door. 

Goals for the future classes: The majority of the class, I just sat in the back of the room and observed students as the instructor read aloud. Im hoping that in the future the teacher will utilize me more, I am experienced in mentoring and I desperately want to learn more. I feel that working 1-1 with students and directing questions towards individuals instead of the class as a whole will possibly engage some of the students. Maybe next week the students will be more lively and connected with the material.