Reflecting on my Village Project experience across the year, the ten big ideas that I will take with me as a result of this experience that wil help me as an educator are listed below:

1.) There will be someone there to help you along the way – In my case, starting out with the Village Project the site director was there to explain what our roles were as volunteers.

2.) Be there for the Students – when you are not at school, or in this case the village project, the students tend to wonder where you are. 

3.) Help the Students – the school that I was at was a low-funded school. Students may not have the best homelives either, so it’s important to help them that way their minds will grow and you can pass your knowledge down to them.

4.) Deal with Discipline – Students will not always be on their best behavior. We had to deal with some discipline issues or remind the students that what they were doing was uncalled for. 

5.) Understand why you’re there – Even though you might not want to teach Elementary Education, it’s important to realize why you are at the school in the first place – to dip your toes in the education field (regardless of grade-level) but also to serve the community. In the wise words of Dr. Riggle “we are called to serve.”

6.) You are Going to Make Mistakes – I know this one may seem to direct, but for the Village Project, you have a lot of students to look after; you and the staff members do, so you always can’t see everything that happens. The most important thing to know is that as long as you are trying your best, that is the best you can do. Making mistakes is a part of life – it recognizes the things that we may not know at first, but because we make them, we learn from our experiences to help better ourselves in the future. 

7.) Take a Risk – I am going to use one of my personal experiences for this one. The whole after school program was in the gym and a game that they have all must have played before was called “color tag.” Me, not knowing how to play it, was brought to the center of the gym while all the students were lined-up against the wall and I had 1 student with me and I asked her “so, how do we play this game?” She responded by answering my question. Turned-out on that day, I learned how to play color tag. The whole point of this story was to take a risk in participating in color tag. If you take a risk, you may end up liking what you took a risk for. 

8.) You Learn as you Go – after a couple days of the Village Project, you will develop a routine of what you are supposed to do and what a normal day looks like. Similar to being a teacher, after a while you get in the sense of a routine.

9.) Build relationships – It’s important to build relationships with students. Building those relationships will help the student know that you are there for them. They will take those relationships that they have built with you and who knows, maybe one day in the future, they will grow-up to be an aspiring educator just like you. 

10.) Have fun – it’s important not to forget to have fun. Although you are supposed to be enforcing the rules, it’s okay to have fun while you are doing it – play with the students have a good time doing it!