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Jack Tanklefsky

Kailen Stover

Teacher Cadet

December 8, 2018

Enrichment Hours Essay

For my Teacher Cadet class, my classmates and I were given ample opportunity to earn

and record Enrichment Hours, a time to volunteer to watch, serve, and assist those local to us. To

earn these hours, we could use pre-existing volunteering and apply it to our class or use the extra

options given to us by our teacher. We served our community and schools in pursuit of being an

educator in the future. While serving our community, we focused on the 5 Lenses, community,

students, teacher, school governance, and district/state governance.

For me, I am already involved in my local Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)

chapter, which itself provides me with many opportunities to volunteer. This is an example of

garnering to the community lens. Every year, we set up our local Trick or Treat Street event to

garner to kids in the community. We set up games and give plenty of candy and prizes to the

children who come to our booths to play our games. This is a free event, so it is conducted

annually to benefit of those in our community. I was able to use my pre existing volunteer time

to my class. I have learned how rewarding fun and interactive community work is. Teaching and

interacting with children is my passion, so it is rather enjoyable to intertwine my passion and fun.

Because I want to teach English, I chose to spend one of my off periods assisting one of

the English teachers so that I can spend some time early on in my pursuit of education in the

classroom. I am tasked with grading weekly vocab quizzes, helping to decorate the room, and my
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favorite task, helping the students with their classwork, thus, serving local students. Recently, the

students were assigned a video project on the various types of love. Because the instructor has

been grading and helping students with projects on a macro scale, I have been gauging the room

and helping all of the groups with individual worries, concerns, or possible polishes to their

projects. This has opened my eyes to the world of teaching that continues to fuel the fire of my

passion for teaching as my future. It is interesting to hear the student’s individual concerns,

because when self-reflective, they are often overly hard on themselves. It is important to

understand that the student is often more hard on themselves than the teacher would critique,

which was new and interesting information for me.

For Teacher Cadet, participants are given the opportunity to do classroom observations

and assist teachers, adhering to the teacher lense. I, along with some of my classmates, for our

highschool observation, went to an advanced freshman English class. They learned about

Orwell’s 1984 and we helped lead the classroom-wide discussion. In this moment, I felt like a

legitimate teacher. We discussed a book that I have read and students were asking me

comprehension questions to better their understanding. Although I have already read 1984, it is

important to think of the book through the student’s perspective, many of whom are reading the

book for the first time. For this reason, it was really interesting to hear their verdant input

regarding the book.

One of our assignments involved shadowing a faculty member who is not a teacher. This

could be someone like a principal, a school’s physical therapist, or the school resource officer.

For me, I chose my high school counselor to further my knowledge of counselors and the college

process. I shadowed her for four hours and I learned myriads of information about the help desk,

individual student meetings, and how to interact with teachers when a student has a conflict.
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District/State Governance was one of the more difficult categories to volunteer my time

to. It was only until our new district superintendent visited one of our faculty meetings that my

worries would be assuaged. He gave a presentation, spoke of his of his past jobs and how he

came to work at our district. He also discussed his future plans, specifically his “100 Day Plan,”

where he gave the audience insight into what he planned to accomplish early on into his tenure.

He leveled with the audience and gave a glimpse into his thoughts and plans. Through this, the

teachers in the audience and I gained perspective of how someone very new to a place, like the

superintendent to the district, may still be effective in enticing change in their environments.

Although he is rather verdant, he still has high hopes and aspirations for change.

Through the Enrichment Hour experience, my fellow Cadets and I were not only given

the opportunity to better ourselves and our communities, but also given the opportunity to learn

about those in our communities. Through these opportunities, we were granted insight and

further knowledge to apply to the future.