Last, but not final experience at Boys and Girls Club

This was a fun day with the Blue Hawks. I have spend enough time to get to know most of their names and they know mine. During the health checkup today, the Junior staff were busy keeping the kids in line, with their paperwork and at each health check station. Once the children were done moving through the checks they were supposed to sit quietly. Talk about unreal expectations for 4 year olds. So I devised a game. The kids had to take off their shoes for height and weight checks and the shoes were piled and scattered all over the floor of the mulit-purpose/video room. So Sade, Horton, Sonny and Dion organized the shoes in a row, matched the pairs against the wall. As kids finished the check, they had to count the shoes and count the pairs. I was surprised that many of the kids could count 19 pairs and 38 shoes. It was fun to tease them about odd number counts! They didn't think that any of their friends had only one foot.

After the health check we went to the Pearson farm to learn about rototilling and planting some more potatoes. Again, during some of the wait time that staff and Mr. P were setting up, I had a bunch of kids to work with and keep from stepping on the garden rows, the farm implements and the weeds. I had them write their names in the dust. Then they drew their favorite animals in the dust and then I had them draw faces in the dust. Most of the kids could do all of these tasks. The puppies stayed away from the kids today and so a couple of the youngsters could participate fully without being scared of the dogs.

I thought that it was odd that the junior staff sold candy to kids that remembered to bring some money. Kids were told not to share and not to ask for candy. Kids with money/candy had to be separated from the others to enforce the no share/no ask rule. I hope that drawing in the dirt was a distraction enough. It seems to me that the overall learning I came away with is that I cannot exercise appropriate "teacher" authority/expectations until I get to know the kids and they get to know me. The senior staff and junior staff have that relationship and with that foundation, they can work with kids, move them from task to task and maintain expectations.

Thursday @ Boys & Girls Club

Wow, what a ton of rain we had last night! There is no way we can go to the farm for the DragonFly project with the Blue Hawks and the Falcons. We practiced a fire drill with the all of the teams after breakfast. We "counted heads" and kept them in a line for what seemed like a very long time. But it is important that they know that all of the kids are out and that the junior staff can keep the kids in a safe spot. There were a number of WSU student volunteers to help out.

Because we didn't go to the farm, I observed a presentation from the Mental Health Association on problem solving. The kids are 6th graders. The setup was similar to a classroom watching a video and cladd discussion. The volunteer from the Mental Health association did not have experience with classroom managment! Much like the first days in my classroom. I think that I am convinced that attempting to have a conversation/Q&A with a classroom is not possible. Too many side conversations go on. Students do not have basic skill of listening and taking turns. It is just too hard to enforce. Notboy seems to be able to manage basic courtesy with young adolescents. I certainly don't have a handle on it. Perhaps a setup should go like this. Present the information in lecture or media. Overhead has discussion questions. Small groups of students are to break out and discuss the questions and produce some kind of presentation/poster/deliverable, then present to class. Not a jigsaw, but a way to push for conversations, but without the side conversations. I think that with practice, groups of students could pull this off. This observation would say that the lecturer had the students attention for 5 or 6 seconds out of 60. Asking students for personal experience sends each into storytelling with their neighbors.

We took the Hawks around the west side of the facility to look at bagworms with magnifying lenses. There are only so many times that kindergarten kids can stay on a task for more than a minute or two. However, their curiosity and generosity with trying to please can be worked with to start some critical thinking. Again we worked with names and spelling of names.

I am surprised that I have so much fun with the littlest ones. I am of a mind to work with older kids most of the time. I wish I had the confidence to put more of a direction on my interaction. As I watch the experienced staff and junior staff work with the kids, they seem to have a strong sense of what should be, how it should be and what they and the kids should be doing. They seem to have a sense of authority that I am uncomfortable with. To be sure, if I was spending each day with the kids, I think that I could pull that off without being a pedantic jerk.