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E PORTFOLIO JOURNAL ENTRIES

#3 If you were a youth participant in the program you are doing your fieldwork at, what would
keep YOU coming to the program?
If I were a youth participant in in Think Together Program at MacArthur Fundamental,
the only incentive for me to go would probably be the tutoring because the other aspects of the
afterschool programming were rather weak.
Aside from this fall quarter, I also volunteered for Think Together at MacArthur
Fundamental during Spring Quarter 2014. The program was much stronger during the spring
because at that point, the program was still in motion. By the fall, everything was winding down
because the Santa Ana Unified School District was taking over afterschool programming in all
schools that were part of the district. Therefore, the quality of Think Together decreased little by
little as all funds and equipment were depleted in the program.
I really appreciated the tutoring aspect at its strongest points during the spring because
the staff made a conscious effort to send students who were failing certain subjects to get one-onone tutoring. I would have really liked this aspect back then because when I was a preteen, my
family and I could not afford outside tutoring, so my sister and I had to help each other for the
most part. The subject that I struggled with the most during middle school was math, which is
what most of the students struggled with at the fieldwork site. As a middle-school student, I
would have appreciated all the help that I could have gotten in mathematics, and therefore,
would have stayed in a program such as Think Together.
However, other aspects of the program would not have kept me coming because of they
seemed diminished in quality. Other aspects of the program were enrichment activities meant to
help students get more creative and learn how to think outside of the box. However, I felt that
there was not much to gain from these kinds of activities because they did not have a lot of
learning potential attached to them. Of course, this also depends on the fact that I was not able to
see all the enrichment activitiesnevertheless, some activities held so much promise, but were
conducted in ways that did not maximize their learning potential. One such activity was the
cooking activity where all the students did was eat a new kind of food that the program leader
made for them. Considering how little time we had, it was understandable that there could not
much to learn, but these kinds of hand-on activities could have granted students a better
understanding of different foods and cultures.
In short, I wish that there were more activities linked to leadership development, diversity
education, which all conveniently fall under college preparation. I believe that I would really
be enticed to go to the ASP if I saw college preparation activities linked to it because I was
really intent on going to college as a preteen; I just did not know enough about it or how to get
there.

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#8 Is there a feature of your program that you think really impacts the quality of youth
experiences that we have NOT touched on in class? What is it and how do you think it impacts
quality?
I think that the lack of diversity education and discussions with staff and students about
diversity definitely impacts the quality of youth experiences in the program. According to Core
Competencies for Afterschool Educators, the ability to relate to and work well with diverse
children and youth is a necessary quality for all ASP educators to generate successful ASPs
(Mott Foundation, 7). Even though the demographics of the staff at Think Together reflected the
demographics of the student population, more diversity training is needed in order to effectively
engage with all students in the program. In addition, more diversity training and discussions on
diversity need to be incorporated within this ASP in order to create a safe environment that is
more conducive to prudence and respect.
There was one instance during the program where I heard a program leader talk to
student volunteers about how ghetto it was at one of the schools that he worked at. Even
though this might be the everyday jargon of people who live in the area, I do not think that this
language should be used in spaces meant for positive learning. The word ghetto might be
commonly used in that area, but in a larger historical context, it has a different meaning that links
back to the Holocaust. It is important for students to understand that these kinds of words should
not be used just for fun, and that it might hurt people from other communities.
On a more personal note, I can understand this because I grew up in a community that
used these kinds of terms in everyday jargon. Words like Ghetto were often accompanied by
the use of the N- word or the word chino," which could either be used as an expression of
affection or an insult. In my community, the N-word was heard so regularly that it was never a
major issue. However, by the time that I attended college, I learned that this everyday jargon
was actually very insulting and hurtful towards the black community on campus and abroad.
This everyday jargon is actually a result of ignorance, and educators have the responsibility to
foster racial consciousness and conscientiousness within their students.
Another one of my observations was how a minority of Asian American students always
kept to themselves and was left alone by program leaders and other students. This made me
realize that the staffs demographics only reflected the demographic majority of the student
population; the minority population was not represented at all. Educators should make more of
an effort to connect with these students and try to understand how or why they always kept to
themselves for the most part. I identify as Asian American, and if I had grown up in an
environment where I had been the glaringly-obvious minority, I would have felt very isolated
from the school and community.
All in all, educators in the program should be more mindful of what certain words mean
in a larger contextthey need to think outside of the box and determine if certain words should

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even be said in front of their students. They should not promote an environment that makes these
potentially hurtful words an everyday occurrence. This will help students gain a better
understanding of how powerful language is in the future, and help them learn how to
communicate with different communities in a prudent and respectful manner. Moreover, more of
an effort should be made to educate staff on how to interact with students from different races
because from my vantage point, it seemed like the program leaders had a pretty difficult time
connecting with students who were Asian American. It is important for all students to feel like
they belong in their community and their school, thus making diversity education such an
important, yet an under-addressed topic in schools.

#11: If you could change one thing in the program that you have volunteered at, what would it
be and why? Relate to one of our readings/class discussions.
If I could change one aspect of the Think Together Program at MacArthur Fundamental
Middle School, it would be to incorporate discussions and activities related to community service
and community engagement. I believe that incorporating this component is incredibly important
for any and all grade levels because it instills within students a sense of civic responsibility and
respect for their community members. Huang and Dietel address this in their policy brief,
Making Afterschool Programs Better by stating that the most successful and high-quality ASPs
had social or character development in their curriculum as well as a community involvement
component (Huang and Dietel 7). They were successful because they understood that student
achievement is not solely relevant within the school groundsit is also relevant to the students
communities.
I believe that incorporating a community engagement component at my fieldwork site
would give students a chance to build their characters and have more respect for the people and
community around them. Think Together at MacArthur Fundamental was relatively successful in
that it was able to bring out 250-300 students to the program every day of the week. However, I
noticed that even with these numbers, many students did not completely respect their program
leaders. A good number of students were disengaged in the classroom, disrespectful towards
their peers and program leaders, and just seemed restless in general. Even though many program
leaders did well with classroom management, some allowed the students to disrespect them
frequently. Many of the students settled with participating in the program because they wanted to
spend time with their friends. This is a reasonable incentive, but that apparently does not prevent
student disengagement.
In regards to underprivileged communities, students should have the opportunity to
discuss about the issues that exist in their lives. Examples of issues that could be discussed
include poverty, self-esteem, bullying, race, or educational inequity. Either that, or issues that
exist in society in general, and how they deal with these issues. More importantly, the purpose of

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these discussions should be to inform, engage, and empower students to enact change in their
own community. Discussions like these should have action plans and have students understand
that it is indeed possible for them to change their communities for the better. Ideally,
empowering discussions and activities will allow students to understand how and why their
communities came to be, and how and why they should and could change the world that they live
in.
A preliminary topic that middle school and or high school students could engage in is
community service. Some questions to start the discussions could include:
1.
2.
3.
4.

What does community service mean? What is community service?

Why is community service important to society? Why isnt it?
Is community service important to you? Why or why not?
If you could plan any kind of community service project, what would you want to do?
How would you plan it, and why would you choose this particular project?

These questions are meant to help students think about their actions and why they engage
in certain activities. Essentially, they should help students find meaning in their daily actions.
The last question would initiate more of a hands-on activity to empower students to get creative
with their service projects and actually make it happen.
Another discussion could be respect. Some questions could be:
1. What does respect mean in society? What does respect mean to you?
2. Who deserves respect and why?
3. Have you ever experienced disrespect before? How did you deal with the situation? How
did it make you feel?
4. What is self-respect?
This activity should help students critically engage with what it means to respect others
and one-self. This discussion would ideally, also allow discussion facilitators to dive into other
related topics (such as bullying) to not only help students understand campus climate, but also
how to improve campus and community climate.
Overall, community engagement is an important topic that should be incorporated in ASP
programs. Academic development is essential for youth development, but character development
is equally important as well.

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Works Cited
Core Competencies For Afterschool Educators (2009): 7, 10. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.
Huang, Denise, and Ronald Dietel. "Making After School Programs Better." 11 (2011): 13.
Http://www.cse.ucla.edu/products/policy/huang_MAPB_v5.pdf. National Center for
Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.