From Dylan

When I first went to the classroom was unsure of myself. None of the kids seemed mean or evil, but I wasn't quite sure they'd be in the mood to listen to me either. I felt like our teacher, Mrs. Saganitso was the only thing standing between them and chaos in the room, and there wasn't much I could do to help her in that task. Why would they listen to me when I was only 7 to 8 years older than them, and had no real authority, power, or certainty of what to do when troubles came up?

There were a few instances when these fears came true. On the second day, I had an uphill battle with a student who didn't care one way or the other about school, and just wanted to sit still, doing nothing, moody. Another time I had to lead an activity getting the second graders to fill out a worksheet and trying to get them to avoid using the answer key. This was hard, as it was printed directly on the back of the sheet, and I occasionally felt helpless as I tried to monitor the whole group at once.

Most of the time, though, the students seemed willing to give me a chance to help. On the first day, when I still knew virtually no students names, they called me over to help them rewrite and edit creative writing pieces. As the teacher sometimes had trouble teaching the entire class, me and Peggy were welcomed by both teacher and student to assist. I encountered no unfriendliness from the usually sweet, bouncy second graders, and especially at lunch they let me in on their second grader jokes, as well as constantly asking me where I was from, if I liked Justin Bieber, and whether i had a girlfriend.

The school was well-equipped in many ways, with large buildings and classrooms, smartboards, and posters galore. The biggest problem, I think, was the teacher to student ratio, at least in my class. The teacher sometimes was overworked and unable to deal with all the students at once. I feel like for at least for the time we were there, I was able to help with that. And I realized this sounds cliche, but I think the youth group made a difference at the school, however small.