Mrs. Amy Boutilier Sport and Medical Sciences Academy 280 Huyshope Avenue Hartford, CT 06106
Dear Mrs. Boutilier:
For my Capstone project, I will be working with children. I will start by working with The Village and I have been in contact with the Community School Director, Barbara Vita. We came into an agreement where I will help 2nd grade students with their homework, activities that they have at The Village and even coordinate some of my own activities as well. I will be working at Burr Community School and will go every Tuesdays after school. I also will be working with 6th graders that I teach a religious class to on Saturdays at my local mosque. I will make activities for them, teach them about morals and faith, also be a mentor for them. The reason I want to work with children is that I have personal experiences where my siblings and I lack some of the family affection that we needed growing up. I really love working with children especially since I have for most of my life. Being the oldest in the family has made me appreciate children even more and I have become a role model for many of them.
My essential research question for this project is, what effects does poverty have on the upbringing of children? I want to research this question because I feel like many people don't know the underlying issue of children’s certain behavior. This question relates to my project because I will be with children who may come from low socioeconomic backgrounds in their life that restrict them from having or doing certain activities. The artifacts I will be collecting for this project are going to be pictures during activities, student work, and emails.
My mentor for my Capstone project is the after-school program coordinator at Burr Community School, Charity Brown. She is qualified to be my mentor because she oversees all the after-school programs at Burr. She will help me by organizing with me the activities for children and overseeing my mentoring time with the 2nd graders. My other mentor is Lejla Duric because she oversees my progress with the children at the mosque. My learning stretch for this project is that I will end up learning how to be more patient, understand the children and figure out the different types of ways that the children learn. I also will be trying to find activities for students in 6th grade and 2nd grade. The idea of having these children learning from me and me helping them is pushing me through this project. As well having children that are 7 years old and 11 years old enjoy their time being a child with activities that they will have fun with.