Community Partner: Maryland Out of School Time Intern: Ayesha Shible Site Supervisor: Paul Mincarelli
What is Maryland Out of School Time? The mission of the Maryland Out of School Time Network( MOST) is to build a coalition of youth, families, communit providers, educators, funders, and policymakers to expand funding, implement more effective policies, and support quality for youth opportunities in the out of school hours.
These past six weeks at SummerREADS have been the most transformative of my teaching experience. Although I’ ve tutored and taught small classes at local Baltimore elementary / middle schools, spending my summer teaching full‐time gave me the opportunity to develop strong connections with my students and work with actual classroom teachers from Baltimore City. From the not‐sothrilling experiences such as dealing with misbehaving students and managing recess in 90‐degree weather, to the amazing feeling of witnessing one of my students make it to the end of the monkey bars without my help by our last week, or reading to me with a smile on her face— every day came with its own highs and lows.
That’ s where the nature of the SummerREADS program comes in. SummerREADS is more than just a summer camp, it’ s the reality that a student doesn’ t have to belong to a certain socioeconomic class to avoid the“ summer slide” that comes from two months of out of school time. With the risk of losing a whole grade level of reading skills looming over the long sunny days, the program offers students an alternative: access to their own( air‐conditioned) school libraries. While there, students have the choice of three daily activities: reading, creative writing and arts and crafts. Additionally, our collaboration with local nonprofits brings guest workshops from the Maryland Zoo, the National Aquarium, Reading Partners into the libraries.
I was personally thrilled to be a part of a program where students not only experienced an academically charged summer, but they barely realize it! The activities I planned were not designed to feel like school, but instead give students the opportunity to direct their own learning. Being a site counselor made it possible for me to read Charlotte’ s Web in Spanish with a bilingual student and know that her comprehension skills were improving as she gave me her predictions of the story. Through locking into the students’ own interests and holding exciting Arts integration my students and I spent six weeks together reading and learning, but most importantly having a fun summer. ‐ Ayesha
Tasks:
• Created weekly lesson plans focusin conjunction with Arts Integration th local non‐profit organizations incl. Y Reading Partners, Blue Water Baltim Heart
• Led classroom activities including re crafts
• Assisted in data entry and kept track attendance