Well, unfortunately I realized last night that I will only be able to make two of the Bell and Beyond days during finals week and 3 of the days in the week after that. I wish I could make it out 3 days this week but my students' final is Wednesday at 2:45. Yuck. More grading and massive amounts of office hours in the next week. A few of the students won't pass the class anyway. Seriously, one kid got a 4/50 on the exam yesterday. A 4! I don't think he tried though. Another girl I've been working with hours each week only got a 16. Its pretty bad. Anyway, I think I'm suppose to write about things I learned or didn't learn and things I liked and didn't like... though I'm not sure.
I honestly am not sure what I learned or didn't learn. It doesn't seem like I learned much. What I learned all seemed to be little things. I learned little rules about safety in using technology in the classroom, things like how to give young children specific words for which to search. I also learned a lot (and am still learning) about working with younger children in general. However, this doesn't seem extremely vital to what I want to do in the future. I also learned how to use some new computer programs that could possibly be used in my classroom but not nearly enough. Plus, I'm not sure I learned how to integrate the things too much. Yes, MovieMaker could be used for a math project but whether or not my school will allow me enough time to have a project instead of just preparing for ISTEP is what I don't know.
I would have actually enjoy learning more about technology currently used in schools - things like budgets, rules, getting the technology, and fixing the technology. More programs would have been nice too, perhaps with little projects for each program. For example, it was nice seeing Flash and I was able to import a picture but I never did get the picture to spin. However, if I had been given steps to follow on paper and an assignment of making a picture rotate or a ball bounce then I probably would have invested more time and come out more confident about the program.
The Techo board was actually a really good activity and really bad too. I liked the idea of having to go out and search for what various things were, but for one week so early in the semester, that was far too much work and there was no consequence if it wasn't done. Perhaps having 5 to 10 things each week and requiring a paragraph about each one or a blog entry about them would be better. Plus after the initial discussion of what was on the Techo board we never returned to it. That board could be the basis of other things we did in the class such as weekly demonstrations. I guess I vaguely know what RSS feeds are from the techo board and I see it mentioned online sometimes (like adding RSS feeds to things) but I still don't know how it would be used, how it would help me in my class, and when I would use it. In fact, the only program I feel confident with after this class is MovieMaker.
This class was actually much more work than I expected but the work was at least somewhat enjoyable. I think my problem with this class was not the teacher but just the class in general. How do you really make a class about technology integration in schools? From what I've heard about other ways this class has been run, I liked the way it was done. I liked the small class size and the discussions but I think so much more could have been done. It would have been nice to go to a school a couple of times and actually watch a high school math teacher integrate technology. Are there teachers in Bloomington that have the technology certification that could become mentors to the college students seeking certification? It would even be nice to help a high school teacher plan and execute a lesson or activity. I do like the idea of having one student that the W210 student would work with all three semesters but I don't see how technology integration would be guaranteed then. Plus from my experience, it is difficult to work with students through the school unless it is done in the school during the school day which would cause more problems. I really liked Bell and Beyond and I think the teaching experience at Bell and Beyond was something desperately needed by the students in W210. However, I think it would have been better if more teaching had been done. The W210 students don't necessarily need to teach complicated lessons but could teach things like writing letters or just typing. Bell and Beyond is making movies again and it is going much better this time than it went last time because the lesson has already been tried. I think that if we had taught this again using our new knowledge then things would have gone better for us. Plus requiring the W210 students to all teach during one session was a bit much. Having Andrew, myself, and Phil all teach a section in one day was just too much and should have been split up into multiple days.
All in all, I ended up enjoying this class more than I expected. Perhaps bringing the red and blue cups in so early in the semester is not the best thing to do though because it can be frightening to think a class is resorting down to learning about how to use plastic cups on computers. I liked the amount of work that was required but got fed up with everyone doing a poor job on the work, not putting any effort into the class, and turning practically every assignment in late. I think being more script about the quality of work and the due dates would be better.
One last note is that I really disliked the movie we had to do. I think the project should either have been an individual project or a required group project but not either. Plus, I honestly would rather just have written a paper. I could easily write an 8 page paper on the topic (the script I wrote for the paper was 4 pages single spaced) and putting it into the movie didn't add to my learning at all. I already have learned how to use MovieMaker because of Bell and Beyond and had already made myself my own movie weeks ago after discovering MovieMaker in class. Putting pictures to the script and having my partner attempt to read my writing didn't do much for me. I am also still frustrated that Windows Media Player wouldn't play the movies on most of the computers in our room.
If you have other questions about this class, feel free to ask. I am always willing to give you my opinion on something though at the moment I am out of ideas of things to write about concerning this class.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Week 15
I only attended Summit 3 days this week because my normal tutoring session resumed this week. Monday students wrote their stories. Monday I eventually ended up helping one of the more enjoyable students write his story. It was pretty cute because he was writing it about his mom and had a sentence like "They liked hair but hated armpit hair." I hope the mom never has to know her son wrote that about her. Monday was a good day. Wednesday I helped two girls. One girl was recording her story and the other girl hadn't started even writing her story. I taught the girl how to record her story and then actually typed up the story for the other girl as she told me what to type. After we finished the story, the girl and I looked for pictures. The rules for looking for pictures was that the kids could only use google if an adult was sitting with them. Well, the girl found pictures on the kid-friendly website but then she went to google to search for some things. First she searched for "limo." I was a bit concerned but I honestly had no other idea for searching for a picture of a limo! Fortunately, it turned up clean. There were no bad pictures. Then she searched for fashion show. I honestly didn't think this one would be bad. I guess I may be nieve sometimes, but I was pretty lucky that time. A few pictures that came up were questionable, but nothing showed, all of the women were wearing something, they were all covered, and although the initial glance at the page was scary, the women were just wearing swimsuits or underwear or something. It was nothing worse than would be on a Victoria's Secret commercial. So I was safe. Then the girl searched for "old woman." Alright, so, the first picture to come up when searching for "old woman" is this website... http://www.pocketfactory.com/images/stories/old-bday_lady.jpg . Yep, complete nudity. The student was good about the situation though and immediately threw her hands over her eyes (I can't blame her, I wanted to too!) and I scrolled down to a safe place for her to look. So, how do you prevent something like that from happening? The school filters didn't catch it. How do I know what titles are safe to search? And my goodness, why does "old man" not turn up anything bad but "old woman" turns up two pictures of topless women. It just doesn't seem right.
Today I worked with a girl helping her find pictures and sounds online. However, I was next to the male student who has in the past said I was scary looking and approached my face with his in an attempt to show power. Now, I'm not proud about my behavior today though I'd say I'm confused. Well, he wasn't doing what he was told to do and he eventually got mad about something and put his face up to mine again. Now, I was on the floor on my knees so he was already in a position of power over me since he was higher than me. Well, I didn't back down. I stared at him and eventually he just started staring at his computer. I didn't stop staring. Eventually I turned off his computer monitor and unplugged his headphones. He tried to turn the monitor back on and I put my hand over the button, so he moved my hand. After doing this a couple of times I grabbed his wrists to keep him from turning the monitor back on. There was a struggle and I honestly thought he was going to take me down since I was on my knees. Tyler and another IU student were watching though and I think they would have jumped in if things got out of control. I'm not even sure how long this went on but it surely didn't last more than 20 seconds and then he stopped. When he stopped fighting I let go and he was fine for the rest of class. Looking back at the situation I know I shouldn't have held his wrists, but then again, moments before that he was shaking the computer monitor and last time a student did that I said I would step in and physically stop the student if it happened again. Plus, if two students got in a fight then it'd be acceptable for a teacher to physically restrain a student so was what I did today alright? I can't decide. I'm glad it worked though. Perhaps now the student will no longer challenge me.
Today I worked with a girl helping her find pictures and sounds online. However, I was next to the male student who has in the past said I was scary looking and approached my face with his in an attempt to show power. Now, I'm not proud about my behavior today though I'd say I'm confused. Well, he wasn't doing what he was told to do and he eventually got mad about something and put his face up to mine again. Now, I was on the floor on my knees so he was already in a position of power over me since he was higher than me. Well, I didn't back down. I stared at him and eventually he just started staring at his computer. I didn't stop staring. Eventually I turned off his computer monitor and unplugged his headphones. He tried to turn the monitor back on and I put my hand over the button, so he moved my hand. After doing this a couple of times I grabbed his wrists to keep him from turning the monitor back on. There was a struggle and I honestly thought he was going to take me down since I was on my knees. Tyler and another IU student were watching though and I think they would have jumped in if things got out of control. I'm not even sure how long this went on but it surely didn't last more than 20 seconds and then he stopped. When he stopped fighting I let go and he was fine for the rest of class. Looking back at the situation I know I shouldn't have held his wrists, but then again, moments before that he was shaking the computer monitor and last time a student did that I said I would step in and physically stop the student if it happened again. Plus, if two students got in a fight then it'd be acceptable for a teacher to physically restrain a student so was what I did today alright? I can't decide. I'm glad it worked though. Perhaps now the student will no longer challenge me.
Virginia Tech
Well, I've been meaning to write this post for a week now but kept pushing it off to help me clarify my point. I guess my impression of teaching changed last week. Last Tuesday (I believe it was Tuesday), a student at Virginia Tech (a college) walked into a building and killed I believe 30 students, plus himself, and then 2 people earlier in the day (though my facts could be wrong). He chained the doors shut behind him to try to prevent people from escaping the building. Well, the next day I had to go teach my own class in Ballantine and was fearful of being in the building. Of course the fear has gone away by now, but what if something like that happened? I teach on the 2nd floor of Ballantine which would give me 3 stories to fall (because of the location of the room) if we had to go out the window. 30 stories would be over 30 feet which is when the chance of death drastically increases. I would not jump out that 30 foot window unless I knew I was going to die if I didn't. So, if somebody came into Ballantine shooting, what would I do? The window isn't really an option. I'd lock the door. Of course, lock the door. However, IU does not put locks on their doors. Locks can not be on the doors because students would lock themselves out of rooms and such, but couldn't IU provide the teachers with keys? I know in high schools there are practice lock-downs where teachers lock their doors using a key. Would it really cost that much to make some keys for the instructors? If they did, the problem would be solved. Alright though, no key and the window isn't an option. That leaves the option of trying to put things in front of the door. However, because IU is so large, everything is made to be moved easily. Even the heavy electronic cart can easily be rolled around. So, my idea would be to put a line of desks between the door and the wall opposite it. However, this probably wouldn't work, which would just leave the option of putting the large desk in front of the door and laying down against it like was done at Virginia Tech. My mom said that the class that was able to keep the gunman out was the math class. She was proud about that! :-) I guess the point of this post is that teaching at high schools started changing a few years ago when bomb threats and such became more frequent. It is unfortunate though that now college is changing too. I had 3 family members call me the day after the Virginia Tech shooting to see if I was alright. If I'm teaching a college class at a campus like Indiana University, my family should not have to worry about my safety.
Another part about this that upset me was me being the person in a position of power. Last semester I had a student pass out in the middle of my class and collapse into my desk while trying to leave the room. That moment in time showed me just how unprepared I am, just how weak I am, how unknowledgable I am. I didn't know what to do in the emergency but I was the person who was suppose to be acting. Fortunately I had someone who had worked as a doctors assistant who helped me recover the student from the floor, and I knew enough to keep the students back and open the windows (there was no air conditioning in the building) and get the student water and such, but I was shaken up for days after that. If someone was shooting a gun down the hall from where I was teaching, it would be me who was in charge of keeping 40 people safe. If my students did have to go out the window, I would be the last to go. If my students had to run down the hallway to escape, I'd be the person in the back making sure everyone was ahead of me and safe. That would be my job. I don't know how I'd react. I'm not sure if I'd pull myself together in a situation like that and do what I needed to do.
I guess this is all pretty silly to think about but it is also a good thing to know what my options are if something does happen. IU's president e-mailed everyone about the event and sent out a link to the IU Emergency Preparedness website. It was pathetic. It only included 4 things - Influenza, Email safey, Road Construction, and one other equally useless topic. Well, the e-mail safety site actually contained information but the influenza website was just a page of links to things like the IU Health center and the CDC website. My goodness, if IU expects those links to do any good if an influenza (such as the bird flu) hits IU then they are mistaken. Perhaps they have a plan if the distaster hits, but they apparently have no intentions of letting us know. What a shame.
Another part about this that upset me was me being the person in a position of power. Last semester I had a student pass out in the middle of my class and collapse into my desk while trying to leave the room. That moment in time showed me just how unprepared I am, just how weak I am, how unknowledgable I am. I didn't know what to do in the emergency but I was the person who was suppose to be acting. Fortunately I had someone who had worked as a doctors assistant who helped me recover the student from the floor, and I knew enough to keep the students back and open the windows (there was no air conditioning in the building) and get the student water and such, but I was shaken up for days after that. If someone was shooting a gun down the hall from where I was teaching, it would be me who was in charge of keeping 40 people safe. If my students did have to go out the window, I would be the last to go. If my students had to run down the hallway to escape, I'd be the person in the back making sure everyone was ahead of me and safe. That would be my job. I don't know how I'd react. I'm not sure if I'd pull myself together in a situation like that and do what I needed to do.
I guess this is all pretty silly to think about but it is also a good thing to know what my options are if something does happen. IU's president e-mailed everyone about the event and sent out a link to the IU Emergency Preparedness website. It was pathetic. It only included 4 things - Influenza, Email safey, Road Construction, and one other equally useless topic. Well, the e-mail safety site actually contained information but the influenza website was just a page of links to things like the IU Health center and the CDC website. My goodness, if IU expects those links to do any good if an influenza (such as the bird flu) hits IU then they are mistaken. Perhaps they have a plan if the distaster hits, but they apparently have no intentions of letting us know. What a shame.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Week 14
This week at Summit went better than last week because I knew exactly what to expect and I become more bold in my actions. I had one student actually approach with his body only about an inch from mine and try to talk down to me and I was a bit thrown off by that. I didn't back down though. The good news is I didn't make any students cry! The students worked on and finished their letters Monday through Wednesday. Today they started writing a story to make a movie. It is pretty cool that our W210 class came up with an idea that Lynda liked enough to continue even after we stopped teaching.
Yesterday one of the students decided she did not like her letter and that she wanted to start over with only about 30 minutes left. I offered to type for her and after some giggling she said ok. She started something like this - "What up mom? Today in school we started talking about something gross. I have a permission slip you have to sign. We talked about puberty. We also talked about..." and then she stopped. She didn't want to say the words. So, she asked me to guess what else they talked about. Umm... no way! I did NOT want to be the person to be introducing new words to this student if all they learned about was puberty and I guessed something like sex. She showed me the list of words though on the permission slip and although sex was not one of them, sexually transmitted diseases and abstinence were on the sheet. lol, I guess I kind of forgot how awkward it was back in 4th grade when we all learned about those things in school. Poor girl.
Today the stories were going well. I worked with the same student as last week for most of the class until she was adament that I was making her story bad so I left. Then she complained for about 5 minutes because nobody was helping her. I really wish I knew what was wrong with these students. I suppose I should check out the links Anne sent me sometime after this video for the class is done (I'm bitter about this movie, but that will be for a different journal). After I left that girl, I went and talked to four girls in the corner. I gave praise to the two that were working and tried to help keep the other two off of the Internet. Eventually they switched computers and I was able to talk one of them back into working (I told her once she finished her 3rd paragraph she could stop) but the other just wouldn't work. The worst part though is that the two girls were abusing another classmate. The girl who refused to work specifically said in her story that her and her friends did not like the loser ----. Then at one point a group of girls were chanting "prep" over and over again, in reference to the same girl they called a loser in the story. Girl bullying sucks. If there is a physical fight (as there was today between the girl being bullied and one of the bullies) someone can always stand between the two students, especially at the elementary school age, but what do you do about verbal abuse? I can't make the girls stop talking. Once they moved to the other side of the room the bullying slowed down, but it only started again (and appeared to spread) once the group gathered to go to the bus. I know there have been studies done on female bullying (the verbal and psychological abuse attack more than the physical abuse approach) because I've read them before but I don't recall reading any solutions in the articles.
I was shocked today by a few students who weren't misbehaving. One boy sat down immediately and wrote a story. It was only about 1/3 of a page long and it ended abruptly but he typed it up quickly. I talked with him and he said that this wasn't even half of one chapter of a book he had written at home. Writing at home! Isn't that cool? There was another girl who I didn't even know was in the group. She was so quiet and worked so hard that I never even notice until she asked me how to save and I saw she was done. I was impressed with that too. The third girl who was well behaved frightened me slightly. She was working hard and I went to check up on her because things looked a little strange in her story. The problem was that this girl's spelling and grammar was SO horrible that the story no longer looked like anything except a scrambled mess of letters. afraid was a frade, casper was caper, friend was frend, and those are the ones closest to the real words. When I sat down to read her letter, I had NO idea what she had written. I had to ask her to read it to me. I left her with the spelling mistakes though. I figured that as long as she knew what she wrote, our jobs there were not to fix her spelling and grammar mistakes. We are there to help her create a story and such and creating a story is not dependent on being able to have other people read what you write, at least in the case of you making a movie. About 10 minutes later the director had fixed all the spelling mistakes. Oh well.
Yesterday one of the students decided she did not like her letter and that she wanted to start over with only about 30 minutes left. I offered to type for her and after some giggling she said ok. She started something like this - "What up mom? Today in school we started talking about something gross. I have a permission slip you have to sign. We talked about puberty. We also talked about..." and then she stopped. She didn't want to say the words. So, she asked me to guess what else they talked about. Umm... no way! I did NOT want to be the person to be introducing new words to this student if all they learned about was puberty and I guessed something like sex. She showed me the list of words though on the permission slip and although sex was not one of them, sexually transmitted diseases and abstinence were on the sheet. lol, I guess I kind of forgot how awkward it was back in 4th grade when we all learned about those things in school. Poor girl.
Today the stories were going well. I worked with the same student as last week for most of the class until she was adament that I was making her story bad so I left. Then she complained for about 5 minutes because nobody was helping her. I really wish I knew what was wrong with these students. I suppose I should check out the links Anne sent me sometime after this video for the class is done (I'm bitter about this movie, but that will be for a different journal). After I left that girl, I went and talked to four girls in the corner. I gave praise to the two that were working and tried to help keep the other two off of the Internet. Eventually they switched computers and I was able to talk one of them back into working (I told her once she finished her 3rd paragraph she could stop) but the other just wouldn't work. The worst part though is that the two girls were abusing another classmate. The girl who refused to work specifically said in her story that her and her friends did not like the loser ----. Then at one point a group of girls were chanting "prep" over and over again, in reference to the same girl they called a loser in the story. Girl bullying sucks. If there is a physical fight (as there was today between the girl being bullied and one of the bullies) someone can always stand between the two students, especially at the elementary school age, but what do you do about verbal abuse? I can't make the girls stop talking. Once they moved to the other side of the room the bullying slowed down, but it only started again (and appeared to spread) once the group gathered to go to the bus. I know there have been studies done on female bullying (the verbal and psychological abuse attack more than the physical abuse approach) because I've read them before but I don't recall reading any solutions in the articles.
I was shocked today by a few students who weren't misbehaving. One boy sat down immediately and wrote a story. It was only about 1/3 of a page long and it ended abruptly but he typed it up quickly. I talked with him and he said that this wasn't even half of one chapter of a book he had written at home. Writing at home! Isn't that cool? There was another girl who I didn't even know was in the group. She was so quiet and worked so hard that I never even notice until she asked me how to save and I saw she was done. I was impressed with that too. The third girl who was well behaved frightened me slightly. She was working hard and I went to check up on her because things looked a little strange in her story. The problem was that this girl's spelling and grammar was SO horrible that the story no longer looked like anything except a scrambled mess of letters. afraid was a frade, casper was caper, friend was frend, and those are the ones closest to the real words. When I sat down to read her letter, I had NO idea what she had written. I had to ask her to read it to me. I left her with the spelling mistakes though. I figured that as long as she knew what she wrote, our jobs there were not to fix her spelling and grammar mistakes. We are there to help her create a story and such and creating a story is not dependent on being able to have other people read what you write, at least in the case of you making a movie. About 10 minutes later the director had fixed all the spelling mistakes. Oh well.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
New School
Let's just say, today when I came back from volunteering at Summit, I needed a drink. Today was the first time I wanted nothing but a drink when I got home. This week 2 of the 3 instructors were suppose to be gone so I told the one present instructor that I would come two days to help himout. I went Monday and things were a little hectic. I had fun though. There were a few problem students but in general things went alright. I also was able to do a few instructional things such as having the students stretch and announcing that it was time for them to shut things down and come sit on the floor again. The activity itself was uneventful. The students just practiced typing for the entire time. The amazing part though was that there was not the adult support system was there was at the last elementary school. There were only two adults who accompanied the students to the computer lab.
Today was... phew. First, one of the instructors returned so there were two instructors, then myself and a classmate, and two adult helpers (perhaps teachers) from the school. I apologize now for how unorganized this next paragraph may seem, but "unorganized" seemed to be the theme of the afternoon. Well, first the two male students ran to the computer lab (not good) and started making laps around the computer lab on the rolling chairs. It took about 5 minutes to get them to stop and join the girls on the floor. Well, one boy immediately got sent to the hall and as soon as he returned, the other boy was sent to the hall and never returned. Meanwhile, the girls were surprisingly good during the instructions. However, that didn't last long. As soon as the group was told to go start working (writing letters using the letter template in Microsoft Word), the girls started acting up too. First, let's just say the one boy left was causing problems. Apparently my classmate and myself were scary looking (though we looked perfectly fine) and he didn't want us near him. If we even crossed onto the same side of the classroom as him, he would scream (in the high pitched elementary school boy scream). He occasionally would start to play around on his chair again, and went and turned off the classroom lights at least once, but other than that I gave him little attention since it would just make him scream. I believe there were 8 girls present. Girl 1 apparently just moved to the school district and did not have a username or password to log onto the computers. It was not a problem, I simply logged her on under the username I was told to use if I wanted to sign on myself. Meanwhile, she panicked because she feared that since I logged her on, I would need to be present when she returned to log her back on. She did not understand what the flashdrive was doing to save her work. Then she was horribly upset that she did not know her address because not putting in her address would make her letter ugly. Then eventually I left her and my classmate tried to help her. Thats when the girl began to scream/cry that she didn't want help from my classmate, so I had to go back to help the girl again. She didn't want to type, so I typed one paragraph for her and told her if she typed one by herself, I'd come back to help her type the last one. She did not finish the paragraph she was doing by herself before running out of time. She kept fussing over silly things like spelling, grammar, and extra returns that made her letter look bad to her. Meanwhile, girls 2, 3, and 4 were working nearby. Girl 2 seemed to actually be working and completing a letter. I was impressed by girl 2. Girl 3 did a lot of talking and did not even complete one paragraph of her letter. Girl 4 acted like one of the boys. Girls 3 and 4 both made trips to the bathroom and both made trips to the water fountain. Girl 4 decided she wanted to make the trip to the water fountain riding on her chair (the chairs have wheels). I stopped her after about 5 feet and she put up a fight but eventually walked. When she returned she refused to continue to work on her letter. I said alright, that she could decide to stop working, but she would just have to sit and wait for the time to finish. She informed me that she was going to stop working and that she was going to play computer games for the rest of the time. I said no. She said yes. One of the instructors came in at this time and took over saying No. So, Internet explorer was opened by student 4 and then closed by the instructor. It was opened again by the student, and closed by the instructor. The instructor signed the student off of the computer. The student signed back on. The instructor signed her off. This went on. Finally the student discovered a way to make the computer beep while being signed off, so she made it continuously beep. The instructor turned the computer volume down, the girl turned it back up, the instructor turned it down, the student turned it up. This went on. I was shocked. Meanwhile, student 6 was working quite hard but had a letter that seemed to be written toward a male student in her class. The letter was something about how much she hated this student, how much he had hurt her, how she tried to be truthful to him and he blew her off. Ouch. Ah, and then there was student 7. Student 7 about made me lose it. Student 7 just didn't want to work. She didn't know what to write about and she hates typing and she didn't want to work, etc. I was about the 3rd or 4th person to try to get her to type. I was giving her ideas of things to say and she was being quite resistant. I'm not even sure how the next couple of minutes went, but next thing I knew, her head was down on the desk and she was screaming about not wanting to work, she lifted her head up and she was going to cry. I immediately got up and left. I did NOT want to make that student cry. If there was any chance that I could get out of there and keep her from COMPLETELY breaking down, I wanted to take that escape. Next thing I know, she is violently shaking the computer monitor! Ok, thats crossing the line. There are some things with technology. I admit, when I'm mad (and even that this moment) I type a bit harder than I should probably type. But to grab a computer monitor and shake it?! WHY?! This girl probably only weighs 50 pounts (she is tiny!) and I wanted to just pick her up and carry her out into the hall. However, I can't cross that line without knowing it is alright. If needed, I would physically move a student, if there was fighting or something, but shaking a computer monitor could potentially get me in trouble for physically stopping the student. Anyway, I think at that point in time one of the instructors (the same that worked with student 6) came over and typed up some of the letter for student 7. After that, student 7 just played with her letter writing secret alien codes instead of being productive. The other girls seemed alright. Even while having the quick discussion at the end (student 7 had fortunately left by then, her mom seemed relatively normal), student 1 laid on her back lifting her legs up into the air (like she was trying to work on her stomach muscles or something) and student 6 had responses to questions like "what did you like most" and "what did you like least" having to do with how much emotion she put into her letters. Wow. Oh yeah! I also found out that student 1's mom is older than me. Her mom is 25. 25!!! I think Anne is 25. I mean, that would be like me having a child who is 6 years old. SIX! That'd be getting pregnant at age 16. Just... wow. 25 with an 8 year old child. I know it happens, but wow. Oh yeah! And student 4 actually had her cell phone ring at the end of the session. Man, when I was her age we barely used computers and cell phones were the size of books! Ok, maybe not, but an elementary school kid having a cell phone and having someone all you on it when you're in school... that just doesn't seem right.
So, things were bad. I was not expecting today at all. Apparently most students at pretty much like that at the school. I don't know what the difference is between this school and the last one. Why are these students so much harder to control than the last group? Where is the adult support? Where are the girlscout volunteers or the paid people? The instructors need help with these kids. I'm considering going extra times before I head home. I'd even keep up going after finals week except that I think I'll be headed home to help my parents take care of some stuff in their new house. It does leave me 3 weeks though that I can go help extra. We'll see. Today was rough.
Today was... phew. First, one of the instructors returned so there were two instructors, then myself and a classmate, and two adult helpers (perhaps teachers) from the school. I apologize now for how unorganized this next paragraph may seem, but "unorganized" seemed to be the theme of the afternoon. Well, first the two male students ran to the computer lab (not good) and started making laps around the computer lab on the rolling chairs. It took about 5 minutes to get them to stop and join the girls on the floor. Well, one boy immediately got sent to the hall and as soon as he returned, the other boy was sent to the hall and never returned. Meanwhile, the girls were surprisingly good during the instructions. However, that didn't last long. As soon as the group was told to go start working (writing letters using the letter template in Microsoft Word), the girls started acting up too. First, let's just say the one boy left was causing problems. Apparently my classmate and myself were scary looking (though we looked perfectly fine) and he didn't want us near him. If we even crossed onto the same side of the classroom as him, he would scream (in the high pitched elementary school boy scream). He occasionally would start to play around on his chair again, and went and turned off the classroom lights at least once, but other than that I gave him little attention since it would just make him scream. I believe there were 8 girls present. Girl 1 apparently just moved to the school district and did not have a username or password to log onto the computers. It was not a problem, I simply logged her on under the username I was told to use if I wanted to sign on myself. Meanwhile, she panicked because she feared that since I logged her on, I would need to be present when she returned to log her back on. She did not understand what the flashdrive was doing to save her work. Then she was horribly upset that she did not know her address because not putting in her address would make her letter ugly. Then eventually I left her and my classmate tried to help her. Thats when the girl began to scream/cry that she didn't want help from my classmate, so I had to go back to help the girl again. She didn't want to type, so I typed one paragraph for her and told her if she typed one by herself, I'd come back to help her type the last one. She did not finish the paragraph she was doing by herself before running out of time. She kept fussing over silly things like spelling, grammar, and extra returns that made her letter look bad to her. Meanwhile, girls 2, 3, and 4 were working nearby. Girl 2 seemed to actually be working and completing a letter. I was impressed by girl 2. Girl 3 did a lot of talking and did not even complete one paragraph of her letter. Girl 4 acted like one of the boys. Girls 3 and 4 both made trips to the bathroom and both made trips to the water fountain. Girl 4 decided she wanted to make the trip to the water fountain riding on her chair (the chairs have wheels). I stopped her after about 5 feet and she put up a fight but eventually walked. When she returned she refused to continue to work on her letter. I said alright, that she could decide to stop working, but she would just have to sit and wait for the time to finish. She informed me that she was going to stop working and that she was going to play computer games for the rest of the time. I said no. She said yes. One of the instructors came in at this time and took over saying No. So, Internet explorer was opened by student 4 and then closed by the instructor. It was opened again by the student, and closed by the instructor. The instructor signed the student off of the computer. The student signed back on. The instructor signed her off. This went on. Finally the student discovered a way to make the computer beep while being signed off, so she made it continuously beep. The instructor turned the computer volume down, the girl turned it back up, the instructor turned it down, the student turned it up. This went on. I was shocked. Meanwhile, student 6 was working quite hard but had a letter that seemed to be written toward a male student in her class. The letter was something about how much she hated this student, how much he had hurt her, how she tried to be truthful to him and he blew her off. Ouch. Ah, and then there was student 7. Student 7 about made me lose it. Student 7 just didn't want to work. She didn't know what to write about and she hates typing and she didn't want to work, etc. I was about the 3rd or 4th person to try to get her to type. I was giving her ideas of things to say and she was being quite resistant. I'm not even sure how the next couple of minutes went, but next thing I knew, her head was down on the desk and she was screaming about not wanting to work, she lifted her head up and she was going to cry. I immediately got up and left. I did NOT want to make that student cry. If there was any chance that I could get out of there and keep her from COMPLETELY breaking down, I wanted to take that escape. Next thing I know, she is violently shaking the computer monitor! Ok, thats crossing the line. There are some things with technology. I admit, when I'm mad (and even that this moment) I type a bit harder than I should probably type. But to grab a computer monitor and shake it?! WHY?! This girl probably only weighs 50 pounts (she is tiny!) and I wanted to just pick her up and carry her out into the hall. However, I can't cross that line without knowing it is alright. If needed, I would physically move a student, if there was fighting or something, but shaking a computer monitor could potentially get me in trouble for physically stopping the student. Anyway, I think at that point in time one of the instructors (the same that worked with student 6) came over and typed up some of the letter for student 7. After that, student 7 just played with her letter writing secret alien codes instead of being productive. The other girls seemed alright. Even while having the quick discussion at the end (student 7 had fortunately left by then, her mom seemed relatively normal), student 1 laid on her back lifting her legs up into the air (like she was trying to work on her stomach muscles or something) and student 6 had responses to questions like "what did you like most" and "what did you like least" having to do with how much emotion she put into her letters. Wow. Oh yeah! I also found out that student 1's mom is older than me. Her mom is 25. 25!!! I think Anne is 25. I mean, that would be like me having a child who is 6 years old. SIX! That'd be getting pregnant at age 16. Just... wow. 25 with an 8 year old child. I know it happens, but wow. Oh yeah! And student 4 actually had her cell phone ring at the end of the session. Man, when I was her age we barely used computers and cell phones were the size of books! Ok, maybe not, but an elementary school kid having a cell phone and having someone all you on it when you're in school... that just doesn't seem right.
So, things were bad. I was not expecting today at all. Apparently most students at pretty much like that at the school. I don't know what the difference is between this school and the last one. Why are these students so much harder to control than the last group? Where is the adult support? Where are the girlscout volunteers or the paid people? The instructors need help with these kids. I'm considering going extra times before I head home. I'd even keep up going after finals week except that I think I'll be headed home to help my parents take care of some stuff in their new house. It does leave me 3 weeks though that I can go help extra. We'll see. Today was rough.
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