Student Submission: United South End Settlements Children's Art Centre

As a senior in Human Services in the Child Intervention and Treatment course, being a service-learning student at United South End Settlements (USES) has been a wonderful learning experience. USES is a non-profit organization in the South End of Boston that is “building strong communities by improving education, health, safety, and security of low-income individuals and families in Boston”(http://www.uses.org/). I work in the Children’s Art Centre, which is a weekly one hour art exploration class that promotes early literacy and language acquisition.  The goals are to foster community interaction, self-expression, and the development of skills through hands-on arts education for children.

My role as a service-learning student at USES is to be an activity assistant to the Art Centre’s Coordinator and the Preschool Arts Enrichment Teacher, Helen Schroder, who is also a Northeastern alumnus. The class that I am working with is a group of preschoolers who range from age 3 to 4.  My basic tasks include setting up the classroom before the kids get there and cleaning up after they leave. While I am in the class, it feels as if I am just playing and doing fun art projects with the kids, but when you take a step back you can see the purpose for everything that they are doing. For example, when the kids first come in they have circle time where they have to find their name-tag and put it on a numbered list on the wall, promoting name and letter recognition.  Every session they always have access to clay, art journals, and painting, which helps develop their fine motor skills. This, and all of the other activities they do in art class, teaches them how to negotiate large and small group work which develops their social and emotional skills.   

The work that Helen does at the Children’s Art Centre is beyond amazing and inspiring.  She not only has incredible passion for what she does with the children, but provides remarkable support for the service-learning students that she hosts. First, the activities and curriculum that Helen has created for these children has so many specific learning goals, which will ultimately better prepare them for kindergarten, and teach them important life skills. Every activity that the children do has been thought out to increase learning opportunities for the children, which she has also been able to make fun and interesting for them. Helen is not only helping making these children’s lives better, but in the long run, is helping the community as well.

As one of her service-learning students, she is constantly checking in with me to make sure that I am actually learning and getting something out of this experience.  Anytime I have had a question, or needed help with the children or anything else, she took the time to sit down and talk one on one with me.  For example, in the beginning I had a hard time knowing when to say to say no to the students, or how to break up conflicts between them.  Helen has been so approachable that I was able to talk to her about it and she gave me advice and let me take on a bigger authority role, which let me build my own leadership skills. Furthermore, she wanted to be able to give her service-learning students the best learning experience she could that she went as far as to get our class syllabus so she could cater to our learning goals in class. 

Working at a non-profit, let alone at one with limited resources can be a tough job, but Helen seems to find a way to still be amazing at it.  While not having the ability to hire more people can be looked at as a limitation, Helen has the skills to use the resources that she has been given and turn it into a positive.  She is not only getting extra help for the class, but she is providing an unbelievable learning experience and community understanding for students.  

                                                                                                  By Anna Berkowitz