Hey everyone,
So this post is going to specifically talk
about my internship and some of the things I’ve mentioned before but with more
detail like my daily routines, how I’ve adapted since day 1, what I’ve drawn
from my experiences so far, etc.
I am in my third week now and my routine
has not changed too much. One difference for this week is that Wardine (I had
spelled it Huardine before but I was mistaken) is out for the week so we have
someone else replacing him. Yesterday instead of staying in the office and
working on tasks on the computer he is out in the main area with the rest of
the interns. He is also stricter than Wardine. In some ways this would make
sense since he is just trying to make sure everything stays under control and
that no kid gets seriously injured while he plays the temporary boss role.
As for my daily work, as I had mentioned
before that my day is split into three time periods, during the first two hour
time period the first thing I will do in the mornings in go and set up the
rooms around the building for later. This includes tasks such as turning on the
heaters, making sure every room is arranged right, putting down the chairs, and
making sure everything is clean. This doesn’t take too long, maybe around 30
minutes. If there is no pending task from the previous days we will continue to
transfer any written document or paper into the computer like the attendance
sheets and other stuff we note throughout the day.
The second part of the day, from 16-18h, I
am in charge of helping Omar with his work. Recently another kid, David, has
become very attached to me and is always asking for my help. He is eight and a
bit of a crybaby in comparison with the others his age but I will talk more
about him later. Now back to talking about Omar. Since he accounts for 1/3 of
my work there I guess the issues with him are some of the more important ones.
When I first began and I had no idea how to go about teaching a little kid to
write and read in a way where there was an incentive to listen to me. Several
things I’ve learned that have been very useful for me along with prior
knowledge:
(1) Little kids love to talk about whatever
is on there mind.
Proper communication is the key to forming
healthy relationships whether it be a professional, personal, or intimate one.
So this is one thing I didn’t take note of with kids since it is my first time
working with so many at one time. After getting some advice on how to engage
Omar more from Wardine I realized that if I just keep asking questions and
build off the responses with more questions I could build and maintain a
connection with him.
(2) Learn what they like and what they
don’t like.
Why is this helpful you may ask? In terms
of the study sessions I conduct, one can assume with certainty that other
prefer to play and talk instead of study and learn. I know that I don’t like
studying but at my age I have the self-control required to be able to push
myself to do things despite my dislike towards them. Younger kids have not
developed this far yet and so if you tell one to read a book when he’d rather
chat with another one of his amigos, he will go with the latter. By learning
what a kid likes and dislikes, this information becomes an asset. It becomes a
business on a very small scale that can be traded in exchange for what you, the
tutor or person with such knowledge, have. For example, some things I’ve
learned about Omar is that he loves mathematics and using the chalkboard for
anything. Some things he doesn’t like are practicing his reading and writing.
So, what do I do when he doesn’t want to read and I want him read? I tell him
that if he reads three or four pages and explains to me what happened on those
pages, he can write on the chalkboard for a couple minutes. Obviously you can’t
use the same method every time so you must be creative. Another thing that all
children hate is the higher authority figure that has the power to really
castigate them for not following the rules to the punctuation. So I can always
fall back on saying that I will “tell on you.”
(3) Kids don’t have a sense of “an eye for
an eye”
By this I mean that things can escalate
very quickly and without warning when a spark is set near a fuse. A kid is not
even with another unless he has gotten in the last hit or insult regardless of
who started it and it is our job to intervene when we see a potential problem.
This can start from such insignificant things as a fight for whose turn it is
next to play a certain game and always ends, if it has escalated too quickly
for us to intervene, with someone in tears.
(4) Kids love attention, want what they
don’t have and don’t appreciate what they do have
Since Omar is my tutee I give him a special
amount of attention. It is not unusual that another kid or two will come over
and try to ask for help on whatever they have for whatever reason. Sometimes it
will be for something as silly as picking them up and tossing them through the
air or some other child game. Tying this in with the point I made in (2), I can
use this to my advantage by starting a negotiation with them. This is very
helpful since the ratio of tutors to children can be as little as 1:2 to as
much as 1:6 so if I can get 3 other kids to listen to me while I am giving
particular attention to Omar, it is a win-win in my opinion.
(5) Kids cry, a lot
I feel like many people already know this
already but maybe not to distinguish the different types. For old teens and
adults crying is a sign of a severe physical/emotional pain or some
psychological trauma that in most cases requires some form of attention or
immediate aide. For children, crying can mean a variety of things most of which
are not too severe. I don’t want to say they are insignificant but you can
usually disregard a kid who is crying because he lost a game of foosball.
These are some things that have helped me
decide where I need to put my energy and efforts in order to effectively do my
job.
To conclude on the happenings with the
little girl, Karima, from last week, it turns out that she had somehow had a
mistake. So I guess this had happened to her but by someone else. I’m not quite
sure how I got mixed up in this but she did make a somewhat formal “apology,“
as good as a 10 year old girl who doesn’t actually care about the possible
consequences of her actions can make, to me. I’m not even sure how my name got
in there except that I had been playing with her that day but you’d think that
someone who was smacked, spit upon, and then goes home in tears to her parents
would have a good idea, if not at the very least a vague one, of who would be
capable or willing to comport oneself in such a way. If I take away the fact
that I am bigger and older than the other kids, my voice and language are
distinct, and how little time I normally spend with her, you could possibly
argue that skin color confused this girl. Nevertheless, my skin color is even a
different shade than the other dark skinned kids, who make up a majority of the
kids there, and there is only one girl who matches my shade. As for talking to
my supervisor about it, he never directly spoke to me about it until after she
admitted that she had “mistook” me for someone else. He couldn’t give me too
much advice on how to avoid situations like this except to pay close attention
to the kids and how you handle the relationships because what something means
to you could have a completely different connotation to the younger children.
Like I mentioned before, I guess I just have to be aware of how I communicate
myself with the children to make sure that we are on the same page or to figure
out how we are not on the same page.
Another difference in this week as opposed
to the previous weeks was that when we all arrived, our supervisors sat with us
to explain the events and programs for the week (Tae kwon do, chess,
mask-making workshop, football, etc.). I guess one of the hard parts in terms
of activities is that the head of the NGO doesn’t really see me fit to take any
type of leadership role. I understand from one angle that there is the language
barrier and that to fulfill a leadership role you need to be fluent enough to
handle yourself. On the other hand, I’m not a benchwarmer either. I feel I’ve
been exploited by her for her own personal needs. Here are my three
experiences:
(1) She made me go help one of her friends
several blocks away load his car with boxes to move them to some other
location. This is what she told me when I asked the purpose for the visit.
(2) Sent to the farmers market to pick up
several kilos worth of oranges. This wouldn’t have been so bad since the market
is only two blocks away except when she asked for the favor and described to me
how to get there, she did it in a very degrading way which frankly pissed me
off. When she asked me, she started by saying that the task was very
complicated. I may speak like a 6 year old but that doesn’t mean I am one. She
didn’t even seem to listen to me when I told her that I knew exactly where it
was since it is right next to my metro stop and I walk through it whenever it
is open. She told me to look for a fat and ugly guy. Pretty vague and after the
complete lack of respect I ended up getting the oranges from someone else who
charged more.
(3) This third one I avoided by playing to
the vision she has of me. I was working on my activities report and she comes
up to me with a letter in her hand and asks me if I know where the post office
was located. I told her I didn’t even though it is opposite the farmer’s market
and assuming that she didn’t want to try to explain the oh so complicated
directions of how to arrive there, she walked away.
Like I mentioned in past posts the last 1
.5h of my day, 18:30-20h, consists of watching and playing with the kids since
it is their recreational time.
Leave me comments on Facebook or Google+ or
topic suggestions. I have done more than I’ve written but it’s hard to write
about every little detail
Hope you enjoyed reading and until next
post!
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