My Mayan Purpose

Within many organizations, I come in and they access what their current problems, the highest need, and how I can assist with my skills and experience.  With Mayan Families, I served as a Social Worker making home visits, working with the Elderly, and working in the Pre-school on behavioral problems.  

With all my volunteer projects, I am 100 percent aware of the disadvantages of working for an organization for a short period of time.  Many organizations require long term commitments because it is just better for the client and community in the long run.  I completely agree with this and did not want to disappoint clients or the organization.  I made a personal commitment to create something that would be permanently used in the organization and would be helpful to the kids and or teachers.  

In this case, I worked closely with one teacher on children's problematic behaviors and had them cooperating in a short time. Children respond to positive reinforcement and rewards therefore I practiced use of various rewards in the classroom. It was wonderful because I worked with such an amazing Guatemalan teacher. She was only 20, but presented as a 25 year old or older.  She was so wise, so mature, and clever.  She was completely cooperative with any changes I made in the classroom with seats, directions, rewards, praise, verbal and gestural prompts, etc.  Ms. Rosa and the assistant followed right along and this create a strong dynamic and a great improvement.

I worked on a 5 target kids, but really I worked with everyone to assess their level.  This happened last year where I had these amazing classroom dynamics and it was just like a power class and it was pure teamwork and respect.  It was wonderful to see such a warm acceptance to me and my input and suggestions. It turned out being effective for the student and helpful to the teacher.  

This mixed class of Preschool and the older 5-7 had the most behavioral problems of all the classes.  For this class and all 3 other classes, I created Behavioral Rewards charts, which I made through Excel so they can easily print them up each week. I also created a Behavioral Plan for all Pre-school teachers which would serve as a seminar for teachers in the upcoming future. 

 It was a great accomplishment for such short time and my lovely teacher commented on how she thinks I'm better than anyone there and I should stay there with them for the rest of summer.  The thought did cross my mind to stay for the rest of the summer as I loved it that much.  I loved the kids, the teachers, the parents.  My little munchkin who was the worst behaved stopped eating everything in sight, reduced his hitting, and was fun and lovable. 

 When you contribute positively to a human life, there is nothing more rewarding in this lifetime.