Final Post

I can’t believe how fast my first semester of college has flown by. It has been one of the most challanging, yet best experience in my life thus far. One accomplishment I am especially proud of is my service learning, and I can’t wait to share my journey with you all.

When I first found out I was accepted to volunteer at the Pratt Community School I was incredibly excited. I knew this was the perfect fit for me given my past experience with children. Originally, I planned on tutoring kids in math and reading, and measuring their proficiency as the semester progressed. However, my plans changed when I found out I would be helping in a gym class.

I am so thankful that I got placed in this setting because it gave me a chance to share my love of fitness with others. Exercise allows me to think, look, and feel my best. It is my stress reliever, my confidence booster, and it’s always there for me! It was a very rewarding experience to share this with others, and hopefully I made exercise as much a part of their lives as it is mine.

The first couple weeks at Pratt were hard for me. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I sometimes felt lost. However, as I continued to go I felt more and more comfortable. The children started to remember my name, and were always so excited to see me! It is now something that I look forward to each week. It takes my mind off the stress from school, and it is always so much fun! After coming to the realization of how beneficial volunteering was for me I wanted to see how other volunteers benefitted from it. So, for my research I decided to interview other volunteers that work with children.

I asked each volunteer three questions, how does volunteering make you feel, what has a highlight of volunteering been for you and what challenges have you faced while volunteering? I ended up interviewing a total of five people. Each volunteer had similar yet unique perspectives on their experiences of volunteering.

When I asked my friend, Kira, who tutored children over the summer, how volunteering made her feel she said, “It was a really rewarding experience, I got to be a mentor to kids, which is something I really love.”

When asked the same question, my friend Alyson said, “Volunteering makes me feel like I’m earning my keep in the community and it makes me a part of something great!”

Next I found out what each of their highlights of volunteering were, one answer that really stuck out to me was my friend Morgan’s, who volunteered for a middle school book club. She said, “My favorite part of book club was when all of the kids shared one good thing and one bad thing about their weeks. It was fun to hear all the little things about their lives that made them so happy.”

I was so happy to see how many positive benefits volunteering has offered for my friends however, just because it’s fun doesn’t mean it’s easy. So, I asked my friends about some of the challenges they faced while volunteering.

My friend Sabrina, who volunteers said, “I love hanging out with the kids and it’s really fun for me, but it’s not the only enjoyable part of my day, and I know for some kids it is.”

My friend Lucy said, “There’s one child that acts out in class, and it’s hard to keep the others focused when he does this.”

It was very insightful for me to do these interviews. I found myself relating to a lot of their answers. To add to these results I did research on how those around my community benefitted from volunteering. I found an article from a locally based magazine that described how volunteering keeps a persons mind sharp. I had never really thought about volunteering this way before, and this is what really opened my mind up to doing research on how the volunteer benefits from volunteering.

Volunteering connects you to others, helps you to make new friends and increases your social skills. Volunteering is also linked to increased self confidence, a decreased risk of depression and gives a sense of community and purpose. So get out there!

Along with this I did some research on the benefits of gym class and exercise. I found out that many schools have cut back on time offered for physical education classes. This has led to many problems such as childhood obesity. Schools cut back this time to make more time for other classes such as math. They hope that by cutting back this time they will improve the test scores of their students.

However, studies show that physical activity is connected to an improved attention spans, as well as, improved test scores. A high school in Illinois proved this by putting kids in a PE class before a class they struggled with, they found that kids who did this had double the improvement of kids who had PE afterwards. This is because exercise promotes the growth of cells in the hippocampus. Here is a link to the video that explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v6OLCF5Qcg

I am so happy to be volunteering at a school that understands the importance of gym class. Being physically active has a plethora of benefits such as improved memory, reduced body fat, mood boosting, increased lifespans and much more.

I really hope schools begin to realize the importance of gym class. I worry about the future generations, as our society becomes more and more technologically advanced, physical activity is being effected. Why is this? Well for starters, before technology became so advanced people actually had to walk to talk to their friends and things like online shopping were non-existant. People were forced to do basic physical activity, without even thinking twice about it. Now days, with the world virtually at our fingertip, it is possible to live very sendentary.

If you are reading this I encourage you to do anything you can to get yourself and those around you active. The future of our society depends on it. A sedentary lifestyle is linked to factors such as an increased risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, cognitive disorders, heart attacks, strokes, bone loss, muscle loss, mood swings, depression, excess weight and immune system inefficiency. If that’s not motivation to get moving, I don’t know what is!

I understand that people have very busy lifestyles. As a college student, it helps me to set aside a time to exercise the day before. When I reach this point in my day I set aside all of the work I have, and hit the gym. If I have a lot to get done it is sometimes hard for me to do this however, when I get done I find that I am much more focused and productive than I otherwise would have been. Taking this time for myself has been one of the best things I have done all semester, I don’t think I could have made it through without exercise.

It’s can be as simple as taking the stairs, or taking your dog for a walk. There are lots of painless, enjoyable ways to get exercise. One thing that helps me is to have a workout buddy, that way you can motivate each other, and make sure neither of you are slacking. I find it also makes exercising much more fun! Music can also be used as a motivational tool, create a playlist of your favorite pump up songs, this will get you excited to workout! Lastly, stay postive, you may have days when you don’t feel like doing anything, and that’s ok! We’re all human, it takes time to make exercising a habit, but once you do I can assure you that you will live a healthier and happier life.

Conclusion:

I have learned a lot from my volunteering experience. I definitely recommend volunteering to those who have the chance. It is such a rewarding experience for all involved, and this can be proved by my research. I also gained a lot of insight on the importance of gym class and exercise. I hope that I made a difference in the lives of the children who I worked with so they can live a happier and healthier future.

Works Cited:

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1372489/images/o-GYM-CLASS-facebook.jpg

https://montereybayholistic.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/20exercisebenefits.jpg

http://www.nchpad.org/403/2216/Sedentary~Lifestyle~is~Dangerous~to~Your~Health

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/work-career/volunteering-and-its-surprising-benefits.htm