Groove for Good is a community service initiative I founded with the school’s community service office. Once a week for two months through the winter term, a group of dancers (including myself) went to Christina Seix Academy, a boarding school providing scholarships for children of single parents. We taught a variety of different dance styles such as ballet, jazz, hip hop and contemporary, introducing the students there to the diverse world of dance, along with its many joys. For the first time I got to step into a teaching role after more than a decade as a serious dancer, and this program helped me hone my teaching skills with children. Moreover, this was the first time I was able to find an official school program that operates as part of the school’s community service offerings to fulfill the service requirement.

For two years in my sophomore and junior year, I spent two weeks in the summer teaching elementary-grade children in my community at home English reading comprehension and essay writing skills. Through this experience, I was able to develop teaching and curriculum designing skills, as well as collaboration and leadership techniques, especially in communicating with children. Finally, I was able to utilize my deep passion for translation, linguistics, and language studies to further nuance the material I was teaching and make the content engaging, fun, and challenging. I was very happy to be able to give back to my community, creating opportunities for more children to engage in language help and develop an interest in English just as I did. I was also delighted to form lasting bonds with both the children and their parents in my neighborhood through these courses.