Nazrene Alsiro Interns at International Rescue Committee

from FSU Art BA ’19 Nazrene Alsiro:

“The internship at the International Rescue Committee taught me so much and I had the opportunity to work with the youth education team. Most of my duties included tasks with the creative side of the program besides the tutoring and mentorship, I created arts and craft workshops and implemented creative activities into the reading buddy program. I designed the pamphlets for weekly field trips and photographed the students for the youth futures newsletters. I gained a greater understanding of how to interact with high schoolers and strengthened teaching with the hurdle of language barriers. Organizing and writing out plans for the weekly workshops became simple over time. I gained knowledge in understanding the basics of how to teach immigrants and refugees. providing tons of encouragement and mostly focusing on their strengths, not challenges. It required a lot of trial, error, and patience to understand what their teachers are asking of them and how I was to explain it. A lot of the time they didn’t have books so we researched other sources together.

There were so many moments were special on a personal level. Some of the field trips we took were to colleges and the students were full of questions and excitement, something you don’t always see. One of the students talked to me privately about her fears, background, and hopes for her life after graduating from high school. All she needed was to be listened to and encouraged but more than that she taught me a lot with such maturity and wisdom. She later found out she received 2 scholarships and acceptance into the university of her choice. It was one of the most endearing things I had ever witnessed. During their spring break, we had a day where the students came in to paint. I talked about the importance of composition in artwork and you could see that it was understood in a lot of their work. I would recommend this internship to students that are interested in teaching. Besides learning a larger more personal side about students and their background. You learn more aspects of the individual learning techniques. It is great for someone focused on art education too because you get the flexibility to come up with your own teaching method to a wider variety of students and specific learning needs.”