Introductory Meeting with YHS Teachers

Today, I had my first meeting with the teachers with whom I will be working. Mrs. Porter is the Algebra teacher and Mr. Sowder is the Science teacher. The meeting was at 7:00am in the science classroom. My supervisor suspected that scheduling the meeting this early in the morning was my first test and indeed, when I arrived to the meeting at 7:03am, they commented that I had passed my first test by being able to arrive relatively on-time.

We spent a brief amount of time introducing ourselves and I described the goal of the program and what role I hoped to play in the remaining months of the school year. Both teachers have had more than 15 years of experience and I could instantly tell that they had a wealth of knowledge about teaching. What immediately struck me was the amount of passion that they have for their students. Throughout the conversation they shared different stories with me about what happens in the classrooms. They told me how difficult it can be to teach a class when so many of the students are craving for attention and will do anything to get it. Given the needs of the students, they agreed that having one teacher for 25 - 30 students is unreasonable.

We discussed some of the logistical stuff about what days I would come and which classes I would attend. I later decided on the Algebra and Science classes and to attend twice a week. I took away from the meeting the clear message of “just keep coming.” Both teachers told me that once the students see that I am there consistently and interested in helping them that the relationships will develop. The worse thing that could happen would be to come one day and never return or return sporadically.

[Editor’s note: The following section was added as a reflection on how the initial meeting process could have been better]

Although our initial meeting worked well to break the ice and allow us to introduce ourselves to each other, we spent most of the time discussing who we were and our personal philosophies on teaching and education. Since I have such a strong interest in education, I found myself really enjoying just listening to the perspectives that both of these teachers had to offer. Retrospectively, we should have held two meetings, one meeting to break the ice and get to know each other and another meeting to discuss more particular details about what role I would play in the classroom.

It would have been very beneficial to schedule another meeting where I looked over the calendar and the upcoming topics and discussed what ways I could be involved in each section. As the semester progressed, I asked the teachers what their plans were for the following week and I would proceed accordingly with regards to thinking of ways to be more active in the class. I think that having a meeting to do this and spending a significant amount of time on the front end will help make future volunteers as effective as possible at connecting with the students.