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Editor's note: This article is part of a series on service-learning at ����̽̽. These stories were written by students as a service-learning project in Joyce Hendley's Public Communication course.

The determination of a single student to become an accomplished reader was one of Jessica O’Brien’s most rewarding memories as a tutor at Edmunds Middle School in Burlington.  It also helped inspire her to become a teacher.

“I would help out in the homework help room after school, and a student named Fartune would often come in with work to do,” said O'Brien, a teacher and Class of 2014 University of Vermont alum. “When she finished her work, she would always ask me to help her improve her reading. Eventually, she started coming in even when she didn't have work, just to sit and read with me.”

As a service-learning student in Professor Jennifer Prue’s “Adolescent Development: Psychology with Education Perspective” and Professor Alan Tinkler’s “Reading in Secondary Schools,” O’Brien tutored English Language Learner students at Edmunds Middle school and at the King Street Center in Burlington.  She cites her service learning experiences as the reason for her seeking her current position: O’Brien is a teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School’s Alternative Program, where she works with at-risk students. 

“The class allowed me to work closely with students in the Burlington community,” she said. “It was an excellent experience, because I tutored kids outside of my content area — English. This helped me learn to think on my feet and help students approach problems from many different angles, which is essential for being an educator.  It also gave me experience working with students who have struggles at home,” she added, “which helped me to become more understanding and compassionate.”

O’Brien admired her students for seeking academic help, even when they had other, severe personal problems.  Several of the students she worked with, for example, lacked resources at home and were limited to inadequate, inconsistent meals at home.  Often they and their siblings parented each other, as their actual parents were rarely home; these students saw the safe, quiet, and controlled school environment as an escape from their chaotic lives.  O’Brien’s service learning experience made her comfortable approaching these students and increased her empathy and understanding of their situations.

From the start, O’Brien anticipated a rewarding experience especially when she knew she would work with local secondary students. “I was very excited because I always wanted to be a teacher and I was finally getting to work with kids,” she said. “But I also wanted to make sure that I was actually going to be doing some real work and it was not going to be a waste of time.”

Learning to Reflect

But while she struggled with time management, the process helped her develop an essential teaching skill that helps her today: She learned to make time for reflection, which helped reinforce the learning and made the experience more salient.

“I think experiences without reflection mean very little to us,” she said. “I think it is hugely important to take the time and really think deeply about what you have been doing.”

She asks questions following lessons or experiences that enable her to think about how the lesson went and how she could have done better. 

“Because I am in my first year of teaching, I am making a lot of mistakes, and I am definitely not doing the best job I will ever do in my life,” she said.  Reflecting after each lesson helps me improve, bit by bit. […] After I do that, I can take what I have learned and utilize it the next time the opportunity comes up. But   I don't beat myself up, I don't think bad thoughts about myself, and I never let it get me down.” Instead, she uses  it as a motivator, rather than a hindrance. “I consider myself a lifelong learner, and I use reflection to help me improve, not to stop me in my tracks.”

O’Brien also reflects on the consequent impact she and her lessons have.

“After reflecting on the tutoring I did at Edmunds and the King Street Center, I realized I was having more of an impact than I realized,” she explained. “I was impacting the students I worked with in a positive way by helping them. I was impacting the teachers working there because now there was an extra person to help out. I also realized that I was part of a much larger impact on the entire Burlington community because of the service learning requirements at ����̽̽. […] I think of how if there were no service learning classes at ����̽̽ how much the community would suffer. A lot of kids, students, teachers, organizations, and families depend on ����̽̽ students and their volunteering.

“I would have never realized how I was a piece of something so much larger than myself if I had not taken the time to reflect.”