I found this article to be very compelling. As a child, I participated in various OST activities. I did softball, soccer, CCD church class every week, but the one I really stuck to was dance. I did dance for ten years and I loved it, at first. The last two years of dance was when I start to develop anxiety and had panic attacks often during/before performances at recitals and competitions. As a result of this, the girls I danced with started to pick on me, which only made my anxiety worse, which made them pick on me more. It was a vicious cycle. My dance teacher was always very kind to me and showed me compassion when she could tell that I really needed it. She would check in on me and gave me time to be alone when I was getting worked up or stressed out. She was a very big supporter of mine, not only because she was my dance teacher, but because she cared for me and wanted me personally to succeed.
Out of School Time can be beneficial for youth in many ways. They can learn from whatever activity they are doing, make new friends, and learn from/form bonds with the adults working in their program. It also gives them time to relax and have fun so they are not always stuck in school and have an outlet to get out their stress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWtFWQ1dPz4
This TedTalk discusses the importance of OST activities. The speaker touches on summer learning loss and how, over the summer, students tend to lose a lot of cognitive skills. He also mentions how a lot of children in lower income areas don't have access to OST programs. This ties into the article very well because both pieces feel strongly about students having access to activities outside of school hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment