Hey everyone!
I
know that by the time you read this I will actually be in my second day of work
but that is because I used yesterday to finish two other posts that were
overdue to be published. Anyways, here goes nothing.
Despite
being told that I would be working from around 9-5, the NGO, “Les Enfants de La
Goutte D’or,” does not open until two on normal days and I think 10 on
Wednesdays. So I am actually working from about 2-8pm on regular days and 10-5
or 6pm on Wednesdays. Now that I have mentioned my work schedule, I will go
into detail about the people with whom I am working.
First
there is my boss, Bénédicte Godo. I haven’t had much interaction with her yet
except for when I got a tour of the establishment and when I was told what my
duties for the day were. When I first met her I was obviously very nervous
because I’m in a completely different environment in every sense of the word:
different language, way of handling things, mixture of cultures since the
arrangement of people (the workers, the children, and the parents) is very
diverse, the language, etc.
I also want to
point out something that does not consciously cross your mind when you think of
language because as native speakers of a certain language, it becomes innate to
you and you don’t think twice. There is a big difference in how different age
groups speak with many varying factors that give each speech a peculiarity. For
example, a kid who is not quite old enough to be able to pronounce certain
sounds correctly. Not only does the language barrier exist naturally to me
because he speaks French but also in the way he SPEAKS his French. Think about
it for a bit. Everyone has there own twist on the way they speak their native
language in particular as opposed to those who learn a second language in an
academic setting. The academic language that is taught in schools is thought by
the analysts to be the “standard” or ”model” speech, which is obviously good
for a base. In short, I’m referring to the dialects and accents that include
variations in grammar, choice of words, pronunciation, and even distinctive
pitch patterns. To this I will start needing to adjust myself. There are many
other variations but I will not venture there and instead continue about my
first day.
Next
there are the three other stagieres; Maura, François, and I forget the last
name. Maura is a Spanish girl from Valencia who moved here two years ago not
knowing any French and now speaks it almost perfectly without any type of
distinct accent that would lead people to believe it was a second language. In
my guess it would be due to the fact that she has been attending school here
the last two years and so not only has taken French classes but also has had
the chance to pick up local accents and variations to not stand out. The other
two are both natives of France. The three of them started working a week prior to
me and I feel will become great assets to me in terms of language since a) none
of them speak a word of English, b) due to (a) I am being forced to not use any
English, c) being fluent in Spanish I can easily ask for help along the way
from Maura whenever I don’t understand something or need help with French, d)
since the three of them have been here a week longer, I have gotten insight on
how things work around here to avoid the normal problems I would encounter if I
were to go in blind and finally, e) a type of blueprint for me to see how
people my age deal with younger children and their families in this
environment. This has also given me confidence to ask my first several
questions about how to handle delicate situations like, for example, when two kids
fight, and be able to have engage in active conversations with my boss.
Next
I will talk about my first two hours there and including my experience arriving
there, some of the situations I have experienced and the activities I’ve
realized with the children.
The
organization is located in the 18th district of Paris in a somewhat
lower end of the city in comparison to where I live about a mile or so East of
“Basilique du Sacre-Coeur“ for a reference. You can actually see the top of it
when looking from the entrance of the organization, which is pretty neat. At
the time of day when I arrive (2pm), there are many people just hanging in the
street. Some of them trying to sell you stolen merchandise at good prices,
others begging and playing music for money, and another small group of people
probably looking to steal and sell to the venders. I’m not saying that is what
is going on but based off of what I observed and how there are lines of men
shoving high-end looking phones in your face as you walk by, I can only assume
they represent one end of the theft network and this is one area to where your
wallet or stolen phone go to for resale. I have actually found these areas,
despite how dangerous they can be, to be reliable for these types of things
partly because the merchandise was stolen, erased, and resold with factory
settings and good prices. People don’t usually go to areas like this just
because they can also be targeted.
After
going through a couple alleys I arrived at the building. When I first arrived I
was given a little tour of the building and where my boss would situate me at
different times of the day. In my next post I will upload some pictures but I
forgot to yesterday. After that I was given a decent sized manual of the
organizations history, values, objectives, activities, relations, etc. From 2pm
until around 4:30 there were no children or anyone except for a couple paid
employees and us four interns. Since no one was around to tell me exactly what
was going on and all I knew was that there was some type of reunion until 4ish,
I got more thoroughly briefed by the other interns, mainly Maura since I could
understand her perfectly and I was still somewhat nervous to speak in French
with people who talk really fast since I would spend some of time saying
“comment¿¿” and ”t’as dit quoi?” Having only been there a week, I was told of
some of the activities that the other three had done which included creating
different types of activities lists, making sure that whenever a child comes
in, he/she must sign in, put up with anywhere between 5-15 kids coordinating a
pile up attack against you, tutoring kids in materials like math and reading,
finding engaging ways to interact with them while making sure to not let the
other kids distract them during study time, and then some of the tasks that
take true concentration. These were mostly busy grunt work on the computer,
which included making and filling in different types of worksheets and
spreadsheets, numbers and analytical work, etc.
After
the reunion was over and Bénédicte returned, I was introduced to my first
pupil, a kid name Omar Rahd (I think that’s how his last name was spelled). I
was taken through the process of taking down all the information of the new
children with a simple questionnaire which I was to read to them, told what my
child was trying to accomplish for the day, and then sent off for a 1 ½ hour
tutoring section in a small classroom with about 10-13 other children and 4
other tutors. Monday was reading day for Omar so we started reading. He moved a
lot and there was this other girl there, Dunan or something of the sort, who would
not leave him alone. This is also several years older than Omar and 3x as
aggressive. This led to a fight and the only thing I felt I could do was tell
them to stop and physically hold them apart. She would not let Omar use the
chalkboard when we went to go practice spelling and reading cursive letters.
This problem was easily solved since I did the writing and would just write
higher up on the board where she could not reach.
This leads me to some of the first problems
and resolution options that I asked Bénédicte after the first 1 ½ hour was done
and it was recreo time. The first was the tendency towards physical violence
that some of these kids had and how to diffuse the issue. The second was what
to do when a child will not listen to you and to whom I should go for help
since Bénédicte is not always working directly with me. The third was what to
do when you are attacked by a 5 y/o. The fourth dealt with how much should my
child be trying to accomplish in a day so as I don’t push him too hard which
can happen since I have no past relationship with him and therefore do not know
his capabilities. These are all problems that I will facing over the next 2
months as I am working with the socially define “problem kids.“ I personally
love them already and they are a great group of kids and we had lots of fun. No
one is perfect and some of the “issues“ that these kids have that don’t permit
them to be in school with the “normal” kids because faculty do not want to deal
with them I don’t think are any worse than any other issue. The problem is we
don’t understand every quirk, which can make a child frustrating to deal with,
and what we do understand, we can manage with the appropriate resources and adequate
input. Over the next two months I will be gaining a great understanding and
awareness while learning what makes each kid tick in order to harness it and
use it to the advantage of everyone. At least, I hope so.
Anyways,
after study time was over we spent the next 2 hours playing games with them and
just trying to keep them under control. This was not easy as the ratio of
interns to kids during this period was about 1:5. It was just us, the original
four interns again. I think that’s enough for now.
Thanks for reading and until next post!
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