Over my time at GirlForward, I had experiences that caused me to learn about education policy, being an educator, ESL and refugee students and nonprofit’s work. To start off with, the purpose of this internship was to learn about educational policy in a real-world context. At the beginning of the semester, I was nervous about how much I was going to learn about educational policy at a place that I had been at for a year in the education division. While I may not have learned a lot about educational policy on a national level, I learned how educational policy can be implemented at a small level in a nonprofit. I was very lucky that GirlForward and specifically, Emily and Ashley, allowed me to pursue my interest in math education at GirlForward.
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In Loyola’s Teaching and Learning program, there is a lot of emphasis placed on schools being community centers. There is not an explicit educational policy that states that teachers should be working to get as many parents involved and different community organizations tied into the school, but it’s an expectation in Teaching and Learning. At GirlForward, I saw how GirlForward works with schools and teachers to advocate for the girls and be a resource for refugee families and ESL students. While there is not a specific law about partnerships between schools and community resources, part of policy is principles and a valuable principle is working together to create safe spaces and learning opportunities for all students. Tying my learning from GirlForward to my coursework this semester was something that enhanced my own learning and …show more content…
Since I have been there for a while, I witnessed the shifts that have taken place. From the first rearrangement of desks into cubicles to the first firing of a staff member, I watched GirlForward slowly move away from grassroots to a corporate style climate. Throughout the shifts, I reflected on my role and shifted my own concept of what my role at GirlForward was. When I started, I was one of many interns and I was the odd one out with a special project. The other interns did calls and mentoring logs and other tasks that ran GirlForward’s day to day operation. Then, GirlForward hired Sanj and Emily R. and now Jay. This past semester, about half of all the interns were special projects because the day to day operations had staff members. Interns are now being used to facilitate greater growth and next semester, only a couple of interns are being taken on who have special projects that fit a need of GirlForward. It’s been challenging working to fit into how GirlForward climate has shifted and watch what it was doing to the staff members. Divisions happened between directors and engagement specialists and there an animosity between the staff and the board developed that I had not seen before. I counted my role as not choosing sides and being neutral and not engaging in idle gossip which was also difficult because I then felt like there was camaraderie among interns and their respective boss which was not
In Loyola’s Teaching and Learning program, there is a lot of emphasis placed on schools being community centers. There is not an explicit educational policy that states that teachers should be working to get as many parents involved and different community organizations tied into the school, but it’s an expectation in Teaching and Learning. At GirlForward, I saw how GirlForward works with schools and teachers to advocate for the girls and be a resource for refugee families and ESL students. While there is not a specific law about partnerships between schools and community resources, part of policy is principles and a valuable principle is working together to create safe spaces and learning opportunities for all students. Tying my learning from GirlForward to my coursework this semester was something that enhanced my own learning and …show more content…
Since I have been there for a while, I witnessed the shifts that have taken place. From the first rearrangement of desks into cubicles to the first firing of a staff member, I watched GirlForward slowly move away from grassroots to a corporate style climate. Throughout the shifts, I reflected on my role and shifted my own concept of what my role at GirlForward was. When I started, I was one of many interns and I was the odd one out with a special project. The other interns did calls and mentoring logs and other tasks that ran GirlForward’s day to day operation. Then, GirlForward hired Sanj and Emily R. and now Jay. This past semester, about half of all the interns were special projects because the day to day operations had staff members. Interns are now being used to facilitate greater growth and next semester, only a couple of interns are being taken on who have special projects that fit a need of GirlForward. It’s been challenging working to fit into how GirlForward climate has shifted and watch what it was doing to the staff members. Divisions happened between directors and engagement specialists and there an animosity between the staff and the board developed that I had not seen before. I counted my role as not choosing sides and being neutral and not engaging in idle gossip which was also difficult because I then felt like there was camaraderie among interns and their respective boss which was not