Final Reflections- #2

Consideration of Materials and/or Social Space

Often times I substantially underestimated the use of space and materials in our daily lives. As I brainstormed for this blog, I began to realize just how much these areas effect our daily lives, reactions, and learning abilities.
Thinking specifically about my experiences with the service learning site, I can think of specific examples where this was significant. When I arrived for the first session, I was nervous to find that the space of the setting was an open environment with a only cubicle divisions to create divides in the tutoring space. Knowing my personality, I am easily distracted and often find it difficult to focus in situations where there is a lot going on around me. I feared that I would become distracted and not do as well of a job as I should have done.
Later that first day, when my first student arrived I found that I was almost taken into a trace or another world. It was not until the end of the hour that I realized there were other people around us working and talking. The small divisions in the room actually helped us to keep the focus on learning and to be able to really remain on task. Attached to the walls of the dividing areas were posters which reinforced the ideas of English that the students were learning. Some areas had vowel sounds and others had relational pictures. Additionally, the east side of the room held a large collection of reference books and computers for students to use. This added to the setting of the learning environment.
The space around the us was full of diverse collection of social ideas and representations. First, on most visits to the NALC I found that where normally a handful of people from different races and social classes. Additionally, the room where the lessons took place had artifacts from other countries which helped to tie the space together to match the diversity in the people which were present for the lessons.