My name is Zauditu Saunders, I am 16 years old and a sophomore at Ethical Culture Fieldston School. I have been volunteering at Streetsquash since the beginning of the 2023 – 2024 school year. I volunteer as a tutor. Currently I tutor in Math, Science and English on an as needed basis. I work with somewhere in the range of 3 – 10 students per session. I was introduced to the program through my sibling, who was a student at Streetsquash. 

I wanted to tutor at Streetsquash because I liked the idea of helping other students succeed in school, especially because in the past school had been really hard for me. Throughout my time volunteering at Streetsquash, I have noticed a lot of improvement with the kids I have worked with. Though it’s worth noting that the change is because of the program as a whole and because of students’ efforts in succeeding, not specifically because of my tutoring. 

I think that volunteering at Streetsquash has impacted my life very positively. It has a very uplifting environment, and I know every time I enter I am going to have a lot of fun. There have been many moments that have stood out to me while I have worked at Streetsquash. One particular moment is when the students in one group had finished their work period, and they got to play Kahoot. This Kahoot was about worldly facts. Everyone loved this Kahoot. This stood out to me because there tends to be a stereotype among teachers that students don’t like to learn. I think this moment demonstrated that it is how learning is structured that most impacts student engagement. Dariela, the Academic Coorindator picked a super fun Kahoot so everyone enjoyed learning through that method. 

I have observed that Streetsquash helps students by guiding them through a solution-based approach. The mentors at Streetsquash guide students through actions, by supporting them in completing missing assignments. By actively pursuing the things students can change, while also not spending too much time on the things that students can’t, like assignments that cannot be turned in after a certain grading period and past grades that don’t affect future ones.

Students are empowered to improve. I believe that everyone who is interested should volunteer at Streetsquash. This is going to sound cliche, but I really have learned more from teaching than I have from my classes at school. On top of that, I got the opportunity to meet so many new people and minds, it provided me with a new perspective on learning. Overall my experience at Streetsquash has been overwhelmingly positive and I think most volunteers benefit from the environment of this program and the experiences they will gain here.