First Day of Community Service!

We were divided into four teams.  Each of the team had about 15 students.  There is the blue, red, orange and green team.  I am in the Green Team J. Our first community service site is a charter school in Philadelphia called Youth Build.  Their website is:  www.youthbuildphilly.org

In the school’s own terms:  “Youth build Philadelphia Charter School provides out-of-school youth in Philadelphia with the broadest range of tools, supports and opportunities to become self-sufficient, responsible, contributing members and leaders in their community.”  And they achieve this by combining both academically rigorous coursework as well as real “in the field” work training in fields like nursing, truck driving, home building/repair, computers and so forth.  It’s a demanding one year program that requires a lot from the students.  They begin with thousands of applicants.  Out of that pool they invite 500 students to come to the school and meet the staff.  During that time, the program is introduced to the prospective students.  What it consists of?  What it requires of them?  What types of services are available?  And during this time as well, the students are expected to be highly discipline to the point that if they ever arrive late to the introductory meeting they are disqualified from participating.  A folder with different options (other than youthbuild) is given to them and they are asked to leave.  At the end, out of the 500 students invited to visit the school about 300 are accepted and they are the new youthbuild cohort.  Though it’s a grueling process,  the program is definitely worth the hype.  The staff there visibly love their job and wholeheartedly believe in and execute the mission of the school and in the kids that they admit. 

We were there from 8 to 4:00pm.  And what we basically did was facilitate two different groups of students.  During each session we basically went through “how to conduct yourself during an interview” and “how to answer certain questions”.  I know that everyone has some interview skills and I think that everyone “on a good day” can “wing” any interview.  Nonetheless, practice is important.  I let the groups of students that I worked with know this.  I also let them know my experience with interviews (which has not always been amazing).  This way we all started like “on the same page”.  Once the students knew that we were “both” practicing and helping each other through this learning process then they were more receptive to my feedback.  It was a really good experience.  I had never step foot in a charter school before this.  I’m glad that this was my first experience with charter schools.  J