I am completing my ICR requirement at the IPS Newcomer School and so far it has been an incredible experience. The IPS Newcomer program is designed to help acclimate children and families that are new to the United States. The classrooms are comprised of students from many different areas of the world although a majority of the students speak Spanish. My role as a volunteer is to assist the teachers in any way I can. Usually, I help make sure the students in the classroom understand the instructions and that they have their questions answered. The class sizes vary between 15-40 students per teacher so our assistance is very helpful especially since most of the students are still learning English.
At first, I was placed in a science classroom and the topic of the day was the solar system. The students were making flashcards of all the planets and as they were working together most of the students were speaking Spanish amongst each other. I loved listening to the language even though I have no experience with Spanish what-so-ever. After the science class ended, I moved to help out in the music classroom. The teacher was very interactive with the students and they all loved her. The students spent the class practicing 2 songs that they had previously learned and they had the option of playing the guitar, ukulele, keyboard, or drums. The coolest part of the music class was at the very end when they had some free time and one of the students began to play classic Spanish songs on the guitar and all of the students joined in and started singing. This situation reminded me of a class discussion that we had on music and cultural patterns in music and how music tends to unify different cultures together. I doubt that all of the students in that classroom were from the same community but they all joined together in song and they all empowered each other by clapping whenever someone held a microphone and sang into it.
Overall, this first experience with IPS Newcomer was incredible. It was great to see how the students felt empowered in their classroom because others in the classroom were in similar situations. I can’t imagine how challenging it must be to acclimate to a new school without this type of program. IPS provides a very safe place that removes a roadblock for newcomer students and families as they transition to a completely new community.