This week at IPS Newcomer, was a very informational week. This is because students were given a presentation on career and educational pathways for them after finishing their core 40 at IPS Newcomer. To my surprise, Newcomer also has a program for those after finishing high school, to help them go to another program that can further their education as well as, set them up for a career. For example, they would go attend one of the programs lets say a business for two years. YES ONLY TWO YEARS, sometimes three. Which is really surprising since at Butler University most business majors attend here for four years, and still need experience and networking to landing a job in a company that fits their skills. Furthermore, this made me think about how they probably didn’t have this type of support or connections in their native country. This is because a lot of the students there can barely read and write at a second grade level. So, it is very nice to hear that once they finish high school they still get this support. This made me think about in other cultures how some women can’t even go to school to get an education or in some places in Africa I know that once a girl hits puberty then their mother pulls them from school. Since they don’t have the material needs for a female to handle their cycles. As well as, some boys don’t even get put into schools they are put into labor once reaching a certain age. This just shows how much places around the world are as well as, just opens anyones eyes to appreciate what they are given when others probably aren’t given the same treatment as them.
Afterwards, was advisory (aka my favorite time at IPS Newcomer) which was on math again (think maybe its always math advisory not sure… still finding stuff out. Anyways, this time I had to teach and assist students in finding surface area of rectangles. I honestly forgot about surface area and the formula to solve problems like those ones. Well I figured it out and helped many students who were excited to learn how to solve the problems, in addition, many of the students enjoy math and learning new ways to calculate/ other ways to solve problems. Moreover, just surprises me that many of them don’t fully understand how to multiple or add simple numbers. Well, because when I was in the third grade is when I was first introduced to multiplication, however, these students are high schoolers and still haven’t learned this. It made me think maybe they didn’t get this education as well as, maybe their native country didn’t focus on math skills. Maybe they focused on family priorities, religion, or history of their country. Which all these are important and certain subjects are probably more information than others in certain countries. Altogether, I always enjoy going to IPS Newcomer and helping students and learning something new about their culture and teaching them about mine as well.
Also, something I talked with the teacher I was assigned too. Apparently, I’m the only student that has returned to his class out of the Butler Volunteer students, which is surprising. I can see maybe it was too much for them because the students are high schools and majority of the time they don’t listen, or maybe the language barrier scared them. Even though, Spanish is not my native tongue I still try and communicate with them (pros of actually paying attention in my 200 . level Spanish class). Anyways, still is a good experience and every time I go I feel more connected to anyone who lives in the Indianapolis community.