Final Reflection

My New York Home


In 2016, New York city had a population of about 8.5 million people. In 2016, there were 63,000 homeless people living in shelters. This doesn’t include people living on the streets. When I was living in New York city there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t see someone living on the street. When I heard that Southern Utah University (SUU) was providing students with the opportunity to spend their spring break helping the homeless in New York, I couldn’t turn down that opportunity.

I had a couple motivations for why I wanted to go to New York city. First, as a student of SUU, we are required to do an EDGE project. EDGE means Education Designed to Give Experience. This project needs to go through one of five engagement centers: outdoor, community, global, leadership, or creative. Each project also needs to take at least 40 hours to complete. Another reason why I went to New York was because I wanted to be able to help the homeless people. Third, I thought this would be a great opportunity to meet new people by doing service together.

The day finally came when I could sign up to do an alternative spring break. My husband and I saved up enough money to pay the fees and also buy the plane tickets. Before the spring break, the group of people who were going to New York had two group meetings. The first one was to get to know one another. The second meeting was to gain a deeper appreciation for the population we were serving. This meeting included realizing that just because we are helping the homeless doesn’t make us better than they are. We then received an itinerary for the week, and what we would be doing.

On March 11, I boarded a plane to go to New York city. I flew into the Newark airport, there one of the Break-a-Difference leaders picked me up from the airport. The next day we met several other college students from several different schools. We were told what to expect from this week and shown how to set up our cots in the gym to sleep. The next day we realized that our expectation of working with soup kitchens and helping the homeless were not going to be met. The Break-A-Difference organization needed help in other areas. Most of the students from SUU were assigned to work with after school child care programs associated with the Boys and Girls Club. During most of the week I went and worked with a second grade class with homework, and then played games. One day during the week I got to work at a food bank. We also had an unexpected blizzard which closed down transportation for us for about a day and a half. We did other smaller service projects during that time period such as writing letters to children in the hospital and to soldiers in the military. After the week was over I flew home.

For this project I had one goal. That was to develop greater compassion for the nation’s hunger problem. For this project even though I didn’t work directly with homeless people, I was able to work with kids who don’t have consistent meals at home. Most of the children in the after school program only received food at school. They would come to school for breakfast, and then lunch, and before they left they would get a snack from the after school program. I am going to be an Elementary teacher and this opened up a world that I realized I will be living. As a future educator I am now expecting to have children come to my classroom hungry. Some students won’t have to worry about being hungry. However, I realized that I will have more students than I thought who will be worrying when they will eat next. I felt like even though I thought I was going to be working with a different part of the community that goes hungry, I gained deeper understanding for the community that I am making my career.

In addition, I predicted that my outcome would be that I would be working with people from different backgrounds and cultures. This outcome was something that definitely happened. There was one day that the students had a dance party. I have never seen a kindergartener move and dance like these children could dance. They were break dancing, they were stepping, they were having so much fun. The students I worked with were mostly of the African American ethnicity; whereas in Utah most classrooms are made up of mostly caucasians. The vocabulary they used was much different than what we use in Utah. The way their school was set up was much different than the school I have worked in before. For example, most of the schools that I have worked in the teacher would walk in from of the class. In the schools in New Jersey, there was tape on each side of the hallway and the teacher would walk on one side while the students would walk on the other. With these cultural differences I felt like I achieved my anticipated outcome.

Using the skills that I was learning in school was something I wasn’t anticipating to use when I went to New York. When I was assigned to help with the children I was actually really excited. I was excited to see what the schools were like on the east coast. I was also excited to work with this demographic of kids. During part of my time I was able to watch the kids learn how to step and dance. Using my classroom management techniques learned at SUU I was able to help the teacher stay in control of the children and the kids were able to learn a lot. I was able to see how talented they are. Also I was able to help kids with their homework. I new the teaching techniques and some of the standards that were associated with their homework. I felt like I was able to help them understand their homework, and gain a deeper passion for the field that I am going into. I am so grateful for the skills that I have been learning and that I gained from helping these children.

Southern Utah University does require an experiential learning experience for all of their students. As a future educator I see that learning by doing is essential to actually learn material. Learning from a textbook doesn’t teach you real life. Learning from a textbook doesn’t allow you to feel and make human connections. Learning from a textbook doesn’t teach compassion. However, learning by going out and doing teaches that the world is more than your community. Learning by doing teaches that people are more important than a good test score. Learning by doing changes people. And people change the world.