One of the most challenging pieces that comes with adulthood is busyness. Whenever I talk with my friends or family and ask “how’s life?” one answer very likely to come up: busy! Jobs, family, bills, relationships, domicile cleaning, and social activities all make time management of adult lives challenging, fun, and most importantly… BUSY.
I have found that while most people want to give back and volunteer their time, the obligations of adulthood can make that taxing. While donating money to the causes and organizations that do good work is a wonderful thing, getting to have direct interaction with other people and seeing your volunteer efforts in action is a feeling hard to match. The struggle with that is the typical time intensive needs of volunteer efforts can often clash with the necessities of daily life, allowing volunteerism to take place less and less as we age.
The Educurious Expert Network is a way to solve the challenges that can hinder people from being able to volunteer their valuable time AND allow them to positively contribute to young people’s learning! The flexibility offered allows experts to use their volunteer time in increments that best fit their schedule.
Experts can make a significant difference to a student’s learning experience by taking ten minutes to answer students’ questions on a discussion board, video conferencing with a classroom or small group discussion, or helping answer teacher questions about curriculum related to their work field or personal interests. An expert can expect to contribute about 1-3 hours a month of volunteer time.
Educurious designs project-based learning curriculum where the role of the students is shifted to active participants, allowing them to become more involved with their learning and practice the skills necessary to thrive in today’s workforce. Some examples of our courses are: biology, history, environmental studies, and beginning personal finance. Students complete fun projects such as: designing a local park, making podcasts, or creating a graphic novel.
Everyone has life experience and professional advice to share, and we at Educurious want to harness that valuable knowledge and use it to help young people as they prepare to move into the workforce or post-secondary educational studies. The Educurious Expert Network is a group of volunteers who have committed to supporting career-connected learning via virtual, electronic, and in-person support of teachers and students in the classroom. Educurious is continually looking to grow our expert network. Whether you live in Seattle, New York, London, Dubai, or Sydney, if you would like to volunteer to contribute to youth learning by sharing your expertise, we’d love to have you on board.
Interested? We’d love to have a conversation with you about joining this growing network of expert mentors helping students gain confidence, competencies, and the drive to succeed in and beyond school. Email Blake Konrady BKonrady@educurious.org or call 206-717-2293.
