Cascade Elementary School is a K-6 school in a well-established area of Orem, UT. The school building is older and should probably be torn-down and rebuilt (rebuildingcascade.tumblr.com). The neighborhood surrounding the school consists of mostly single-family homes with some duplexes and some basement apartments. The school is adjacent to a city park, which lends to a quiet environment on the East, but is bordered on the West (the front of the school) by one of Orem's busier streets. Cascade has a very unique floorplan in which the main building consists of hexagons. There are three classrooms to each hexagon. Because the school is so old, there are also several portable classrooms.
Most families with students at Cascade are home-owners rather than renters. I will be working with students in Mrs. Steven's and Mr. Abbott's first grade Chinese Immersion class. Mrs. Stevens has each class of students for half the day and Mr. Abbott has them the other half. I am choosing to work with Mrs. Stevens for a couple reasons. First, none of my kids have her this year. Second, she is an amazing teacher and I give her all the credit for my children developing the love of reading that they have. The students in the class are taught only in Chinese during the half of the day when they are not with Mrs. Stevens, so they have a little more wiggle than the average first graders. Although, from my own experience, most of these students have very involved parents and receive more support than the average first grader, also.
Service Learning is an important part of fully understanding what you are doing. One way to think of it is as hands on training. When you are learning a new job, you will learn more efficiently and more deeply if you are doing and not just hearing what is being taught. But this is only one part of Service Learning. The other, more valuable part, is that you are helping your community. For me, this is especially valuable because I am well established in my community and with Cascade. My children either have had or will have Mrs. Stevens as a teacher. So, by serving her now, I hope to have made enough of a difference that it will also affect my younger children's education. The benefits of Service Learning are as limitless as your commitment to making a difference in whichever classroom you are in - whether your own or the one in which you are volunteering.
