# data[].attributes.body
These kids are all so excited and so ready to go to college. A lot of these students are going to be the first int heir families to apply to college, get accepted to college and really go to college and further their educations and lives. It is incredible to see them ask questions about the life and classes and how to stay organized. I love that fire in their eyes.

# data[].attributes.body
Something that I found was incredible in this class was the setting. The school has a special AVID classroom that has the tables, NOT DESKS, arranged in conversational pods around a white board. This promoted group work and conversations as well as group thinking and really being able to interact with everyone. We talked about this in class as well, about schools needing to break away from the lecture/listener platform that has been the norm for so many different years and I see this break away at such an advanced pace in this school.

# data[].attributes.body
Going back to my service learning, it is essential that I mention who these kids are and why they are where they are. So, these kids apply for the AVID Elective program, these kids are on the cusp of tapping into their brilliance and just need a few nudges to get in the right direction. They are kids who are in AP classes and want to succeed and go to college and further their educations. The course also emphasizes college visits and readiness and really advocates for the students outside of just teaching them how to use a study group, which is where I came in! Just to facilitate, of course.

# data[].attributes.body
Standardized testing is a touchy subject for me. In school, I did relatively well on these tests but I had best friends that struggled because that is not where their strong suits laid. In the course text, To Teach A Journey, the author Bill Ayers talked a lot about the people that come into a classroom and put labels on students that aren't learning as well and I stand by my previous blog posts, that is WRONG. I hate that kids are being forced to change their naturally curious behavior to please the 'system' that hardly works for them. Even as a future high school teacher I don't think curiosity applies to just elementary aged kids.

# data[].attributes.body
As a future teacher I promise to give my students the benefit of the doubt, even if I don't trust myself with a topic, does not mean that they are not capable of approaching a topic with poise and respect for one another.

# data[].attributes.body
So I was there to help them learn something! Right? Well, turns out I learned a lot from these kids as well. The Friday after the election, I had a group of social studies kids and one the the questions that came up from one of the students was, "How does Donald Trump compare to James Madison?" and I was ready to put a halt to this conversation but then these kids, high school aged kids who were all part of minority groups began talking about tariffs and immigration reform and incredible topics, even finding positives of the Donald Trump presidency when the only thing that I could say about him just a few days before was, "He's really good at protecting straight, white males."

# data[].attributes.body
I found that most of these kids were incredibly respectful and excited to be in the classroom and work through problems together, of course there were still some that weren't as animated about the course work but for the most part it was an exciting venture. I learned that if I gave them minutes here and there to get the talking out of their systems and then bring them back to the large group we had more success during the tutorial and garnered better results!

# data[].attributes.body
When I first began as an AVID tutor I was actually quite terrified, it was the first time that I had ever been in a high school classroom interacting with high school aged kids. I thought that they would be a bit rambunctious and would't take me seriously because some of them are actually quite close to my age. I also thought that they were more likely to get off task with tutorials because it is group work and I remember how that went in high school!

# data[].attributes.body
Although my content area is English, I found myself in most of my days there to be working on and helping students with a multitude of different subjects, including calculus. Scary, I know! But the whole point of AVID is to be a facilitator for the students and they were able to help each other with the use of guiding questions that are outlined in the tutorial process.