My social action projects.
This project required a lot of time and effort because it was not something that you could do overnight. This project also required effort from the learners as it is a teaching and learning curb. My social action project was to start a chess club from scratch. I had to organize chess boards and pieces from my contacts. The school helped me with the finance but organizing them was entirely up to me and because I was the only student from varsity collage doing this social project it was challenging because I had to accumulate more than 10 chess boards and pieces by myself. There were many interested candidates because of my poster that I made. I restricted the classes to grade 4 -7 because the space given to me could only accommodate 20 learners. the reason I chose to open a chess club was because there are numerous benefits to learning and playing chess such as improved cognitive ability, improved concentration and focus and thinking critically to name a few. Chess helped the learners improve in their academics especially in their core subjects which were mathematics and natural science. I saw the improvement at the end of term 3 when I helped mark their scrips. There were many challenges that this project brought. The first being, learners that did not understand the game thus it took more time and effort to explain the rules as well as teach them the strategy required for them to compete competitively. Another challenge was that I was a one person overseeing more than 20 learners. I needed to use my time wisely because I was only given an hour each day to practice with the learners. There are multiple challenges such as learners do their own thing and disrupting the lesson.
This service learning has changed me personally as it allowed me to grow in the sense of the amount of responsibility placed on my shoulders. It has also improved my organizational skills as well as my time management skills. This service learning made me reflect on how much chess means to me and how much joy I felt when teaching these young minds, the art of chess. This project made me emotional because it reminded me of when I was their age learning how to play chess from a teacher that holds a special place in my heart.
I developed new skills such as learning to control disruptive learners as well as learners that wants to do their own thing instead of focusing on the lesson. The knowledge that I have gained through this experience has horned my skills in terms of my overall chess game and my approach to teaching chess. The attitude that I have adopted is perseverance and consistency is key. Being consistent when teaching learners how to play chess ensures that these learners adopt the same attitude which results in progressive learning.
This incitive will benefit the school because as mentioned above chess promotes teaching and learning as well as increased cognitive, concentration and improve memory skills. This is sustainable as it does not require many resources.