The Outreach Experience
The outreach provided a good opportunity for us to visit other schools and take part in a variety of educational activities. We interacted with the children on a more personal level in addition to teaching them, and we had some things to learn about their personal and academic lives from them. I personally instructed the fifth-grade Hernandez students in the scientific principles of polarity and water. The kids appreciated being taught new things and having a teacher they could openly relate to around them. They actively participated in conversations and asked me and their fellow students questions about the subject matter we were covering as a result. During the outreach period, I issued out tests to the kids to test their understanding of the topic and their performance was motivating.
The Importance to the Kids
In my view, the outreach was of great importance to the kids. For instance, I made sure that the classes were as interactive as possible to ensure every kid benefited from them. I also made sure I made good use of visual aids in the demonstration of different concepts to ensure they were well understood by the kids. In chemistry, taking a practical approach in teaching a topic like polarity goes a long way in ensuring that the students understands key concepts and retain them in their mind. For this reason, I made sure we conducted practical experiments where necessary.
The Kids' Positive Engagement
I am of the opinion that the kids had a great time interacting and engaging with me throughout the outreach period. This conclusion was drawn from their reaction whenever we were together. They freely interacted with me and came up to me with both personal and academic question. Regarding the topic, it simplified every concept in the best way possible to ensure they did not struggle too much to grasp them. Together, we addressed any issue concerning the class and the subject to make sure that learning went on smoothly without any unnecessary interruptions. This helped us to comprehensively cover the topic on polarity as no much time was wasted in handling unnecessary issues. However much I monitored their behavior and conduct during our classes, I also tried not to coarse them into doing things they did not have an interest in. For this reason, most of their action were based on personal intuition and principles.
Benefits for Me
As much as I presume that this experience was beneficial to the kids, it was also quite useful to me. I learned a lot about how to interact with people of different ages and personalities. This was achieved through personal interaction with both my colleagues in the school stuff and the kids themselves. My communication skills also developed a great deal. From this experience, I learned a lot about interpersonal communication regardless of people's age. I also gained a lot of experience regarding effective message and speech formulation and delivery techniques. As the kids consulted me with personal issues, some petty and others serious, I learned how to apply various skills learned in school to help people resolve personal problems. This experience also gave me a worthwhile exposure to what goes on beyond school level, in the job market. I learn a lot regarding how to handle myself in the workplace and to respect the authorities. It is also through experience that I learned how to teach and relate to the kids and to handle them under different circumstances.
