《声音》启明星专刊 VOICES for Daystar Academy VOICES Spring/Summer Edition 2019 | Page 31

MHS CORNER
Yoyo Ren
What was your service project?
My service project was to help a nearby Chinese public
school on their English writing, and to teach them how
to write English writing with creativity, instead of the
usual boring and standard formulaic of writing. I ended
helping the 80th middle school of Beijing (温榆河校区).
How did you prepare for your service project?
For my service project, I had to create my own lesson
plan for them, starting from class 1 until the end of
the whole course. I had to make PowerPoints for
demonstration on activities and special forms of writing,
and have a close discussion with them during class.
What were some of the obstacles along the way?
At the early stages of our community service class, I
struggled to find a nearby school that was willing to
work with me, mainly because I did not contact enough
people to get enough schools I can work with, which
delayed my process for a long while.
What do you wish you had done differently?
I wish I would have started to find a contact earlier in
the stages, so I could have had longer periods to take
actions. It’s always better to have a longer time to
prepare, and less to worry about.
What have you learned from this experience?
From this experience, I learned a lot in the areas of
communicating and taking action. For communicating,
I learned how to communicate and socialize with
different kinds of people and leared to accept other’s
opinions as well. I also had to take a lot of action for my
project and step out of my comfort zone of just doing
things for myself and learned to help others first. This
project has brought me teaching experience as well, on
how to work with kids/others properly without a lot of
conflict.
How has this experience changed you?
I would say this experience has given me more of an
idea how teachers feel during class when students keep
on talking about subjects non-related to class. One of
the things about life is you will never truly feel how
others feel unless you have experienced their position
as well. So now I finally understand how teachers feel
when students are talking about non class-related things
while they’re trying to teach. I will talk less about non
class-related things in class as well.
Recommendations for 6th/7th graders?
I would recommend the current 6th/7th graders a few
things on their subject when they work on it in their
upcoming years: work on what you love, and take
actions matching with the plan. The reason I worked
on creative writing for public schools is because I have
a passion for writing myself. It can be frustrating when
you have to work on something you don’t exactly have
a passion for, and it will get boring over time. When you
have something you love to work on, you will treat the
project with much more importance, therefore taking
actions towards it. For taking action, you will have to
plan a general idea of your project, and put further
specifics into the project, then you will have a higher
chance to do well on your project.
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