Fieldwork Experience

Program Site: Our Lady of Lebanon

The program has a mixture of students in elementary school and middle school,
ages 7-13. The facility has multiple rooms and is a two-story building right
behind our church. On the first floor, there are five classrooms and these are
usually for the younger kids. On the second floor there are only 3 classrooms, but
they are for the older kids. Each of these classrooms have a smart board in the
front of the classroom and either long or circular desks with chairs surrounding
them.
Students Served:
Demographics
o All of the students are Middle Eastern, specifically Lebanese or Syrian
Grades Served
o 1st- 8th grade
Number Served
o 96 students
Staff:
Demographics
o Same as the students, all the teachers are Middle Eastern, specifically
Lebanese or Syrian
General observations about strengths and needs
o Strengths

Due to the teachers being the same demographic as the students,

they are able to connect more with the children.

Teachers also are able to connect well with parents.

All arrive on time and dont usually miss a day.

This is a volunteer job so most of these teachers are here because

they want to be, not because they have to be. Which promotes their
belief and motivation for this program.

They seem to truly care about the kids and helping them.

o Needs

They dont always seem too organized or prepared in advance for

their lessons.

Not as qualified as teachers with after school program teaching

credentials.

They need to develop a lesson plan for the whole year so all the
teachers can be on the same page and be prepared in advance.

Hold more staff meetings to keep teachers on the same page

Daily Schedule:
o 7:50-8:00am: Students are arriving to the school and heading to their
classrooms.
o 8:00-8:30: Students in both subjects begin by going over their assigned
homework and asking any questions that they may have.
o 8:30-9:00am: Students usually participate in some activity that teacher has
planned out for the day. For example, they may pick a chapter in a

textbook and take turns reading sections of the textbook and then reflect at
the end what they read. Each day usually has a different type of activity to
help the students learn the subject material better and work with their
peers.
o 9:00-9:30am: Students are given free time to either do their homework,
draw, color, or talk with their classmates and work together on a project or
group activity.
o 9:30-9:35am: Students are switching from their first classroom to the
second classroom to learn the other subject, which is either Arabic or
religion. So if the first subject they learn is religion, then the next
classroom they go to is Arabic.
o 9:35-10:00am: Basically the same thing that was done earlier, teachers
spend time going over homework and allow room for questions.
o 10:00-10:30am: Students will engage in some activity that teacher has
prepared for the day. In the Arabic classes, the most common activity that
the teacher plans are group readings, in which they take turns reading
passages of a book in Arabic.
o 10:30-10:50am: Students spend this time finishing up a group activity or
talk with their classmates and work together.
o 10:50-11:00am: Students are given snacks and allowed to just hang out
and talk with their peers before they leave.

Student Needs:
One thing I noticed that students really needed was order and an organized
lesson plan so the teachers are able to jump right into their activities. They
seemed to be able to get distracted very easily, so any time there was some
amount of free time where the teacher was trying to figure out what to do,
they would start to get loud and get out of their seats. It would end up taking
the teacher more time to help get them back in control rather than set up the
activity. The students need to be able to stay focused and work on an activity
throughout the time period.
What worked were the activities that teachers would think of and have the
students engage in. Most of their activities allowed for collaboration between
students, and that is something they throgouhly enjoyed. They also liked the
activities when they were in the form of a game or competition, so that
worked very well because it engaged the students in the subject material and
made them excited to learn.
What didnt work was the lack of organization. As I mentioned above, these
students would seem to capitalize on any moment the teacher didnt know
what they were doing. This would lead to disruption in the daily schedule and
interfere with the activity time.