Blog Entry #1

• Describe the school and surrounding neighborhood.
The school that I have decided to do my service learning for is called Provo Peaks Elementary. It is located in downtown Provo, Utah.
Provo Peaks was originally called Fair Elementary. It was a broken-down little "ghetto" school pretty much right in the middle of our city. Pretty much no one wanted to attend there because of the reputation that it had. About 5 years ago the district decided to tear down this run-down school and built a beautiful new school called Provo Peaks Elementary.
Even though we now have this beautiful new school, everyone still sees it as this run down little trashy school. But it's so far from this stereotype. This school has and will always have a special place in my heart. I personally never attended this school when it was Fair or Provo Peaks. My parents sent my two older sisters, my younger sister, and myself to charter schools. However, when my oldest brother was about 3 years old (he's now 10) my parents and doctor noticed that something was different with him than my three other siblings and myself. He didn't talk, he was sensitive to fabric and people touching him, and a lot of his time was spent lining up cars and dinosaurs. After a lot of tests and questions, my parents found out that my brother was on the autism spectrum. At this point, my mom had just had my other brother and was already overwhelmed. It was time for my brother to start preschool but my parents didn't know how to handle the situation. One other thing that you have to understand is that my mother is a preschool teacher/owner. I went to her preschool as well as my little sister, so naturally, my mother thought that my brother would also come to her preschool, but that wasn't the case anymore.
You're probably wondering why I just spent all this time explain my life story to you. Well, its because it's important to this next part. While my parents were trying to look for more answers about autism, they found out that Provo Peaks had a special education preschool called Sunrise. Even though it was difficult for my mother to let go, she knew that this would be best for him. My brother started attending preschool at Provo Peaks, and the progress that he made was unbelievable. He continued at Provo Peaks for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and now 5th grade. We owe Provo Peaks everything for what they have done to help my brother be the strong little man that he is today. In fact, in 3rd grade, he had increased so much that it was time to mainstream him into a general education classroom. My other brother around 2 years old (he's now 7) was also diagnosed with autism. It wasn't even a question whether or not to have him go to Provo Peaks because we knew that they would love him and help him grow just as much as my other brother.
My mother and I are now proud to be part of the Provo Peaks PTA (my mom as President and myself as treasurer). We don't really have the words to express how grateful we are to all of the amazing teachers, staff, and the principal at Provo Peaks, other than to say, thank you. I know that all of this probably seems unnecessary, but this is how I describe the school. This is how I see them.
As I said before this school is located in the downtown Provo area. Therefore, there is so much history surrounding it. As well as amazing families and an amazing community.
• Explain what you have learned about the students that you will be working within your service learning placement.
During the Summer semester here at UVU, I had to complete 10 hours at a public school. Of which I choose Provo Peaks. I decided to work in a special education classroom (because of my major), but I would have been happy to shadow any classroom.
As I, of course, have already described, a lot of the students at Provo Peaks are special ed. However, we also have a lot of Latino students at our school. No matter what it's defiantly a fact that we have diversity at our school.
• Describe your understanding of service learning
I have to admit that I'm still a little bit confused about what service learning exactly means. However, I think I have a pretty good idea. Service learning is taking knowledge from this course (EDEL 1010) and using it in real-life experiences, especially in student teaching or shadowing.
I think another way to look at it is instead of just reading what I should do in my own classroom I will get to try it out and figure out different strategies myself.
The last big thing that service learning is giving me a chance to do, is to ask experienced teachers questions that I might have. As well as the teachers that I will shadow might give me advice on some things that I might want to do in my classroom in the future.