New Friends, New Experiences

A selfie of Youssef, Ali and I to remember our first day at Ramy Helal GDLS

Hey everyone! I just had my first community based learning experience. There were ups and downs, and Youssef and Ali. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but I was nervous to be responsible to entertain and speak to 10 or more kids. On our way there I was talking to my teammates, Youssef and Ali, as well as other classmates and I felt like I was the only nervous one. Everyone else made it seem to be an easy task which stressed me out even more.

Youssef, Ali and I had planned to do 3 main activities; get to know their names, then play games to know their interests, and then talk about AI, biases and other topics. I ended up bringing labels to write their names on and printing pictures of some hobbies or interests such as art, sports, reading, nature and music. I felt like I wanted it to go as well as possible, so I wanted to be prepared for anything. We ended up playing more games and had a lot of fun!

I am not the type to take control and lead a conversation let alone a class, but I was put in the situation where I had to. That day, I learned that I am capable of taking the lead even though I always saw myself to be introverted and usually shy when it comes to talking to a group strangers. Our group of kids (more like young teens) were mainly girls, so me being the only girl in the team, had the responsibility to break the silence and connect with them on some level that I felt like Youssef and Ali may not be able to. I started our session with introductions and activities such as mad tea to get to know them a bit. Ali and Youssef had other essential roles – Youssef was leading the conversations that had to do with artificial intelligence, biases and fake news while Ali was doing a lot of the setup and planning.

It was a very eye-opening experience getting to see the kids and learning more about them. As we watched in class after our visit to the school “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story”, I realized how much I already had a single story about the school before our visit. I had an image in my head of how the school as well as the students will be. I was quick to judge until I was proven otherwise. They spoke English very well, related to us in many ways and were excited to work with us. I was expecting it to be hectic. I was expecting them to want to listen or play the games we had. I wasn’t expecting them to have a sense of humor similar to mine and I wasn’t expecting to bond with them so easily.

Within the team we were in sync. If or when one of us stopped talking, the other automatically started another conversation or building on the first conversation. This lead to little to no moments of awkward silence or tension in the room. One thing I would like to improve in our planning process is to have more activities or games planned to play with them which was more fun than talking about AI in a more formal manner which is what we did in the end. I also felt like we were in a very crowded room in the school, the library, with both kids and teachers walking in and out a lot which interrupted our activities and conversations.

The day we went to Ramy Helal GDLS, I laughed, I learned, I made friends and had new experiences. I hope in the upcoming visits, I get to learn more and more from the experience of community based learning as well as from the students themselves.