Seeing Essay, Research Paper
Piero V. Maniaci
Social Rehab
CSP #1
10/13/00
?Seeing?
My community service group goes to the Seven Hills Charter School in Worcester to fill our fifteen hours of service required for this class. At the school our group does a few different things. When we arrive, the children are outside and usually playing some type of schoolyard game. We usually join the children and play these games for a while. Then after about forty-five minutes a teacher come out and announces, ?Time to do homework.? We then go in and tutor the kids on their homework, usually writing, math, and reading. At this time most of the kids go into room 214 to do their homework. Except for Jose who has trouble reading. He goes with Mrs. Rosetti for special attention and help. Jose is Hispanic, about four feet eleven inches, skinny, energetic, and never tucks in his shirt. I once joined him and Mrs. Rosetti in their session because Jose asked me to; there I saw the best example of a consumer receiving help from a service provider.
This human service relationship between Mrs. Rosetti and Jose is exceptional. The two worked together very well. Jose is told to a read a story and when he reaches a word, which gives him trouble, Mrs. Rosetti helps him spell it out phonetically. Jose tries hard to read words he can?t read just because he doesn?t want to be helped and wants to be able to read it himself. After a while though, he has to give in and ask for help. The way that Mrs. Rosetti stays back and doesn?t help until she is asked to works out well in my opinion. It allows Jose to make his attempt at saying the word, and feel reassured that no one would laugh at him, or make fun because he can?t read a word.
Jose also has a problem spelling, which does usually goes in hand with reading troubles. After reading with Mrs. Rosetti, Jose is asked to spell vocabulary words from that reading. The one time I was there he spelt six of the ten words correctly. He seemed very frustrated about the fact that he only answered six correctly, but Mrs. Rosetti reassured him that he did just fine and not to worry. This reassurance is another great example of the good interaction between the human service provider and the consumer. Mrs. Rosetti plays an important role here. The way which she responds to the situations she is presented by Jose can lead to his continuation of his wanting to learn to read, or end that desire to learn to read. Mrs. Rosetti in my one visit always said the right things; she encouraged Jose, and told him not to worry when he didn?t know how to spell a word because he would learn it.
The whole situation Jose is in and the help he receives from Mrs. Guddedi is very effective. Their reading lessons are also very efficient. Jose is taken away from the other kids so he can concentrate on reading and spelling, but nothing else. His separation from other students allows him to focus on the task at hand, and also protects him from ridicule from the other students. We all know that children can be cruel so taking Jose away from an environment where he can be ridiculed is an excellent idea.
Seven Hills charter school is physically very inviting. It is a very clean school and maintenance people are always around cleaning it. The site is also accessible. It is basically in downtown Worcester so people who work in the city, which most of the parents of the children do, can quickly come by after work and pick up their children. The people who work at Seven Hills are all extraordinarily nice. The workers all like to converse with the volunteers, joke around with volunteers, and trust the volunteers when it comes to handling the children. They are all very kind; probably because they know we are doing this in our spare time, and also because we are a great help to them. I feel very comfortable in this environment; I really have no reason to feel otherwise.
If I were one of the children at this school, I would have a great time. They play outside and have a ball. They are able to run around like animals and basically do whatever they want as long as their actions are acceptable. The students then go into a classroom and do there homework. Although most of them don?t enjoy doing homework, the environment in the classrooms is laid back so that the children don?t feel pressured into doing homework. However, most of the children do their homework anyway. This is a great environment for the children; they all enjoy it.
If I had to send my child to an after school program, I would like my child to be a consumer at this site. The workers are well educated, kind, and friendly. The provider?s deal with the children very well, none of the teachers are disliked by the students, which is a rare thing; that speaks volumes for these teachers. I would be more than happy to send my child to Seven Hills. I haven?t seen any reason why they shouldn?t attend Seven Hills, and I?ve seen more than enough reasons to send them to this school.