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.