Shea Week 6

We had another successful session at Shea today. Our topic was college conversations, and we started by having the students write a journal entry about why they want to go to college. I think this was a good way to get the students thinking about college, and their responses will be interesting for my final paper. Then, we talked with the students in small groups about what a typical day for a college student is like, and what kind of clubs and activities we are involved in at PC. We also shared pictures and showed the students our student ID's so they could get a better feel of student life. Most of the students seemed very interested in these aspects of college life. After our discussions, we moved to the computer lab. The students all signed up for college board accounts, which we explained that they will need in the future for SATs, etc. The students used the college match maker tool to find schools that might be good fits for them. Unfortunately, not all of the students were able to complete all the sections of the tool in time, and it tended to narrow down schools so much that some students were not able to find ones that fit what they were looking for. In the future, students should be directed to pick more broad preferences, so schools that might be a good fit do not get eliminated based on trivial criteria. Despite these mishaps, the students were very interested in using the tool overall. However, I noticed that some of the students had trouble with some of the basic information on the tool (such as the word "initial), which was troubling to see for students their age. I hope that today's session helped the students to start thinking about what colleges they might be interested in the future, and made them more excited about the idea of going to college in general.

Shea Week 6

I really enjoyed our lesson today - it was titled "College Conversations" and we began the session with students journaling (either with images or writing) why they wanted to go to college. Afterwards, we looked over some of these journals and saw that most of the students wanted to secure a financially stable future or "make something out of themselves." These answers provided very concrete insight for us to define why these students are truly here, participating in EXPLORE!. After journaling, we broke up into three small groups with two volunteers per group and went through our typical days as college students. We passed around our PC id's and pictures of the campus, our friends, and on-campus events - all of which made students grasp what a typical college student does each day/throughout the year. The students seemed interested in this portion, both of the students in my group seemed to be interested in what college had to offer and came up with a few questions about college in general. I found this exercise particularly helpful because students were allowed a more one-on-one time with volunteers and really got a better sense of college life. We then went to the computer lab and had students make College Board accounts - a website which will prove very useful to them in the years to come. Many students were unsure where they wanted to go to college exactly, or what they wanted to major in, but that is to be expected since they are only high school freshmen. It is very good, however, to get these students ahead of the game and knowledgeable about the websites offered to students to help the college process run more smoothly. Students began a survey which would outline which colleges would be best for them (depending on factors like location, tuition, private/public institution) and students seemed to enjoy this segment of the session. Overall, I think students are becoming more involved in our lessons and actually getting something out of these EXPLORE! sessions.

Preparing for Interviews

Last week at Mount Pleasant our lesson topic was Health and Wellness which consisted of the students playing basketball as a way to have fun and relieve stress after school. Personally, I think if it was organized better it may have been more beneficial, but the students of EXPLORE were not even playing together because there were other students from the basketball team in the gym at the same time. This week's session was much more productive. The students were split into two groups and we talked about the interview process and discussed what not to do and what to do at an interview. I think we gave them a lot of helpful hints and they were able to think of a lot on their own. We worked one on one with the students and did mock interviews with them as if they were applying to college. A few of the students I worked with had some trouble taking it seriously, but we were able to get through it and I think it gave them an idea of what an interview would be like. One observation I made today was a connection to something we discussed in class this morning. In OSS, Rosalinda was encouraged by her friend to join SBU. Similarly, as we were walking into the EXPLORE classroom one of the students called to his friend down the hall and said, "I'm going to this program, you coming?". Something as simple as that could really encourage other students' peers to come to EXPLORE and get something out of it.

Mt. Pleasant Session 5

I have to admit this was one of my harder weeks at the Mt. Pleasant Explore program. Over the past few weeks we have been dealing with this issues of the kids who truly want to be in the program for its benefits of learning about college, and the kids who seem to want to be there for fun and games. It can be a difficult balance to manage, because where we have to offer valuable lessons for the students, we also must figure out ways to engage the students who prefer to play fun and games, in hopes of not letting them distract from the learning opportunities of the other students. In my honest opinion, it has felt as though the students who want fun and games have triumphed over the ones who are there to gain from the program. It seems as though we spend so much time trying to control the room, or the reckless chatter, that a lot of valuable learning time is lost. I think the most effective way we can remedy this situation is by dividing up into smaller groups. When we are paired or grouped off those students who are eager to learn are given more individualized attention, and the explore leaders are able to separate themselves from the constant attention they are having to give to the other students. Similarly, the students who prefer to have fun and games while at the program can do exactly that. They can sit and discuss what they want, and it does not effect the rest of the class what so ever. We have discussed the importance of smaller groups on one or two occasions, but I think it is vital that each lesson plan focus around smaller groups, in hopes of remedying the difficulties faced when we have a variety of students within the program. Another frustration I felt towards this weeks lesson plan was its lack of usefulness. They theme of the week was "health and wellness" and we spent ten minutes discussing the different reasons we have stress in our lives and the different ways we deal with that stress. The remainder of the time was spent in the basketball gym playing open basketball. No lessons, games, or structure was added into the gym portion at all. I am definitely and advocate for fitness and for being active, especially as a health and wellness lesson, but there was no lesson or purpose to the gym session. I felt as though we wasted the time of the students who rely on us to learn valuable material. I do not want to sound completely negative towards this weeks explore program. It was wonderful to be able to talk casually with some of the girls in the program and laugh around at how bad we are at basketball, but at the same time, I wish I was experiencing these conversations and laughing moments in a more beneficial way for the students. An hour is a really short time to be with these students and I think as leaders we must use every possible second of it to make an impact on these students. I really believe what we do can help these students open their minds to the possibility of college, but I think as leaders we need to be even more dedicated to assuring we do whatever possible to create that possibility.

Service Learning Week #5 Peter Fairbrother

Peter Fairbrother
11/6/11
Service Learning Week #5
This past week I planned the lesson for service learning. I did a lesson on responsibility and autonomy. I wanted to go over what responsibility was and see how the students prioritize their responsibilities. First, we went over what responsibility is. The students seemed to already understand the concept which was good and then we discussed certain responsibilities that the students have and one student explained how he has to cook dinner for his family. This shows yet again how much more responsibility these students have over suburban children. It was still shocking to me to hear that a freshman in high school is in charge of the kitchen even though we read about these challenges that urban school children have.
Next we compared different responsibilities and prioritized them. Family was a very big priority for these students but they still said school was their number one priority. I am not saying that this is not true I am however curious if that is truly the case or if they were just saying it because they thought that it would be the answer we wanted to hear. Personally I put family as my number one responsibility so I am just curious if the students really think that school is that important or if it was merely a biased response.
Next we worked on the subject of autonomy which was not as well known by the students. They needed extra instruction on this topic but once we worked on it they all realized that without knowing it they were in fact autonomous but they did not realize it yet. So I felt good showing them how they are in fact taking responsibility for their lives. It is nice to see those sort of light bulb switching on moments.

St. Pat's

This week was a little bit disappointing. When we got to the site only 4 of the students came and then 2 of them left early because they had appointments that they had to go to. We ended up just talking to them about that they look for in a college and what they hope to do in the future. It is unfortunate that many of the students just skip out for most of the weeks because EXPLORE! is something that could be very beneficial to them. We have started talking about field trips that are going to be available for the students. The first one is next weekend and it is a college visit. The students will be brought to Brown and RISD and they will be given tours so they can see what college campuses are like. Unfortunately JRW is next weekend so I will not be able to go but I am able to go to the field trip the weekend after. We will be going to the Providence College basketball game. I am really excited for this and so are all of the students. We do not have EXPLORE! next Friday but we do have a reflection where we are going to talk about how the program has been going so far.

Chad Brown Week 3

This week at Chad Brown there were a lot more kids because the other center was closed. There were a lot of older kids; they played basketball for the entire time. We went in there at the beginning, but their game was so intense and rough I decided to just do art with the younger kids. I was able to ask several different kids which schools they go to so I looked up the NECAP scores for those. This week's art project was cutting a shape out of cardboard, painting it, and decorating it. I made a hand turkey. Most of the kids who go to the center are boys. Some are really good at art, while others goof off and smeared the paint around. It is interesting to listen to the conversations they have. They were arguing about whose school is better, discussing girlfriends, and debating video games. 

Week 3 at the Tavares Center

This week at service learning I realized the kids are comfortable with us being there, which leads to a better environment. This week, one of the other local centers was closed so there were more older kids at the club. They were bigger than the kids who are usually there when we go, so they took over the spaces they wanted. The boys who normally played basketball or ran around in the gym were now forced to do art because the older kids wouldn't let them in their games. I decided my time would probably be better spent in art as well, so most of us were being creative.

The activity this week was painting cardboard, and some of the kids really have a lot of talent. One child drew a cartoon character to almost exact likeness, whereas the most I could do was paint a flower. It got interesting when one of the volunteers asked a child who he was going to give his painting to. Some said their parents or siblings, and one boy said he would give it to his girlfriend. This turned into a try and guess who he was dating time for all the other kids in the room and it was very funny to see how they reacted because they all know the same group of people.

Shea Week 5!

I thought Peter’s lesson at Shea went very well today. We focused on the concepts of Responsibility and Autonomy, and discussed the definitions and examples of these terms. Responsibility was perhaps easier to apply to everyone’s life, and we each gave some personal as well as academic examples of what we’re each responsible for. We asked students why they felt responsible for these tasks – was it because they truly wanted to complete the task or because they knew that if they didn’t complete the task there would be consequences? Some male students answered that they know they’re responsible for their homework/passing classes because they need to do that to be on a sports team. I asked them if they would still do the homework and work hard in class if it wasn’t solely to be on a sports team and each answered that they would still want to do well in school, which was good to hear. We also discussed how throughout life a student’s level of responsibility changes and increases. All students agreed that high school work is more difficult than middle school and more is expected of them. Several EXPLORE! volunteers mentioned that this level of responsibility only deepens as they enter college, and I thought this was an important connection to make.

We then played a game in which you threw a baseball to someone and answered a question about responsibility that was written on the baseball. I was glad to see that in every scenario, students chose the more responsible option that was given. We then moved to autonomy, and students gave examples of things they do not because they have to do them, but because they want to. Some students said that they read books for pleasure, and others said that they train for certain sports. I thought the discussion of this topic was very insightful for students because it made them realize that not everything they do is done because they have to. Other things we do simply because we want to and those things also contribute positively to our development. I think that this week, the students were more comfortable with sharing their own personal anecdotes which is a good sign of our progress thus far.

Peter Fairbrother Week #4

Peter Fairbrother
11/1/11
Service Learning Week #4
This past week we went to Shea High School again. Our lesson was on planning. We took the students to the computer lab and had them work on two different things about planning. Both of the programs were on waytogori.com. The first program was supposed to be used to help the students plan their high school classes from here on. The problem with that is that the students did not know the names of their classes which I found shocking. When I was in high school we had it drilled into us what classes we were taking. These students know that they are taking a language arts class but they do not know which one. This showed me yet another example of the difference between suburban schools and urban schools.
The second program we had the students use was a test that asked them a bunch of yes or no questions to decide a career they are good for. The questions rarely applied to the students and I do not understand how answering some pointless yes or no questions can decide somebody’s future career. This is another program which the urban kids are supposed to use but does not really prepare them for anything. It just tells them what career they should pursue but it does not help them in anyway start working to attain their goal. This is another example of how these urban students are not being prepared for life after high school.

St. Pat's

I have to say this has been my favorite week so far. The theme of the week was "self-responsibilty and autonomy". Most weeks we have something planned right up to the last minute. On Friday we started off having them fill out a worksheet about an activity they are apart of and what their responsibility is in that activity. That led to us talking about how you have to take responsibility for your own actions and in the end it is ultimately up to them if they want to get into college. Then for the rest of the time we talked about peer pressure and we let them ask us any questions they wanted to ask us about college. We were very honest with them and they seemed to really enjoy this time. I think this brought us all a lot closer and I think now they know that they can talk to us about anything and we will be straigh forward with them and we are there for them if they need someone to talk to. This is something that is very important to these students in urban schools and we have talked about it in class. It is very important that teachers make sure their students are comfortable around them and they know that they can talk to them at any time about anything that they need to talk about. Through service learning I am seeing how important this is first-hand and it is something that will make me a better teacher in the long run.

week 2 at Chad Brown

This was our second week going to the Chad Brown service site. What was different about this week was some of the kids remembered us and opened up a little quicker to us. As we arrived to the site it started to hail/rain something terrible. This had an impact on the amount of kids we had come but it was still a good night. The kids really seem to like playing in the gym more than anything, which is good because they need a healthy and safe way to let out their energy. Kayla and I planned to try and play a game of mat ball with them since we thought it would be a fun game, but no one really wanted to give it a try.

The alternative activity was so create necklaces with a jumble of random beads and some yarn. It's sad to see the lack of resources the kids are given to keep them occupied. After a while the kids pulled out some old blue gymnastics mats to play on. My first thought was someone was going to get hurt (these mats are not all that effective), so we organized a game for them to jump over stacks of mats and see who could jump the highest. It was a lot safer and all the kids tried it at least once. I feel like the site appreciates us coming because it means the staff in charge do not have to constantly babysit the kids. It's nice having more responsible adults around, especially because I don't think the kids see us as authority figures but more as people on their level coming to hang out with them.

Chad Brown Week 2

This week at Chad Brown was really fun. When we arrived, we played knock-out with the kids. There were several older boys this week, but they did not stay very long. When we first got there there were no girls, and only one came later on. I did an art project with the kids when the teacher arrived; this week we made necklaces. This took up most of the rest of the time. We played a little basketball at the end. The boys were stacking mats and had a contest to see who could jump over the most mats. 

This week I was able to hear some evidence of the blended families many of the kids have. The art teacher was asking who they were making the necklace for, and if they had any sisters. She got a lot of responses about siblings who live in other houses, half-siblings, step-siblings, etcetera. It seemed that almost every student in the art room was part of a blended family. This was interesting to hear. So far, I am really enjoying my time at the Tavares Center.

Mt. Pleasant Session 3

The lesson plan for this weeks explore session was "Myths About College". We started by agreeing or disagreeing with common myths about college: You have to party every night to have fun. You can skip classes and still do well. You have to be best friends with your roommate. The food is horrible. And more questions that present common college myths. Students then went around the room trying to discuss why they agreed or disagreed with these myths, and then the leaders attempted to explain their own experiences with those questions to give the students more relevant insight into those myths. I think it was a good exercise, but it can be difficult to implement an important lesson why some students don't want to participate. I have found that a handful of the young boys can be rather challenging to work with. They speak out, interrupt, and try to disagree with every thing the leaders say. I understand that it is after school, they want to let loose a little from the school day, and they feel as though they must be witty or cool in front of their college leaders, but it can be frustrating to see how they can be so disruptive for those students who are taking the program seriously. I started thinking about how some people might automatically assume they act this way because they don't care, or they don't want to be there, but as we have read in previous chapters of our books I do not think this is the case. The students are still showing up to an after school program, they come there willingly for an hour, and for the most part participate in the activities we do. So the problem is not that they do not want to be there. I can't say that I have figured out the problem entirely. I mean for starters they are 15 year old boys. I can't say this for everyone, but I think that 15 year old boys can be pretty difficult to handle in any location, urban, suburban, rich, poor, white, black. A 15 year old boy has a lot of other things on their minds than behaving themselves properly. That being said, I do think they are old enough to conduct themselves in a respectful manner, and I am still trying to figure out how that message can be conveyed to them. I think that the lesson plans make a great difference in their behavior as well. When we break down into small groups the boys seem to respond to this very effectively. They listen, sit still, and participate with their leaders. When we are doing a group activity is when we seem to lose control over them. I think that shows how much personal attention can go. Some students just need that more individualized attention. 15 year old boys might need that individual attention more than girls, or more than 17 year old boys. These are questions educators need to ask themselves. Is the approach I am taking working? Am I effectively grasping their attention? Or are they checked out, do they not care? Us leaders need to figure out the best way to grasp the students attention. Let them know it is okay to be themselves, to be outspoken and 15 years old, but that it is also okay to be quiet, to be serious, and to want to learn. Hopefully as the weeks go by I will find more answers or observations to my questions.

Mt. Pleasant Session 2

After two weeks of being on pause for the explore program at Mt. Pleasant, we were finally able to get back there for an hour session with the students. I am happy to be back and I also felt that this week was much more structured than the first week we were there. Having lost out on two weeks with the students I was glad that we had a slightly smaller group of students to work with, and we spent that time working individually with a student to help familiarize them with the college board website. It was nice to see that the students were exciting about making these accounts, but it also raised a few questions and concerns for me as well. I realized that most of the students we were working with did not have any knowledge or understanding of what college board is. They had never heard of it before, and had never accessed it before. This makes me wonder, why isn't the high school promoting this website, why haven't they exposed the students to this tool. It is such an incredibly useful website in so many ways that I find it very upsetting that the students did not know about it prior to our session. I feel that if a high school is going to aim at getting as many students into college as possible, they need to start with the basics, they need to present these useful tools to the students right away. It was exciting to be able to search around the website with my partner and look at different schools and read different descriptions, but as we did this many more realizations occurred to me. As helpful and useful as these tools are, many of these students are in need of some basic college common knowledge. What I mean by that is that most did not know any thing about college. They did not know the difference between a four year and a two year college, a BA or BS, or even what those stand for, a state college versus a university or private college. They did not know the basic understanding of what college is. I think that many of these students see different colleges on sports channels, or on TV shows and create an idea of what they are, but they do not actually know the facts or the details about college. I think that as explore leaders we really need to take a step back and present these students with some basic knowledge and understanding of college before we can go into specifics about college choice, majors, minors, careers, and all that goes along with picking the right college for yourself.

EXPLORE-SHEA WEEK 4

In my opinion this past Tuesday was the most connected I've felt with the students. I believe that the lesson was conducive to helping the students focus and learn because we basically worked with them in a one-on-one setting. Sometimes I think that there are certain students that act out and become a distraction to other students. They were in the computer lab this week so they were focused on what they needed to do on the computer. Their "assignment" or project for that day was to go on WaytogoRI.org and type in their course schedule for this semester to see if they were meeting graduation requirements and to take a career oriented survey to see based on their interests what career field might spark their interest. One boy that was there only came the first day so he missed the last few weeks. I was able to work with him one -on-one for most of the time and get to know him better. He appears to be a very motivated and kind student who is struggling with school. He is taking a full course load including Portuguese. When I asked what goal he wants to pursue he stated professional NBA player. Before I had the chance to say anything he interrupted himself by saying that he would also be interested in becoming an athletic trainer. I did not want to shut down his dream by being negative about the NBA so instead I focused on what courses would have to take to pursue a field like athletic training. I really hope that he shows up throughout the rest of the semester because I think he was potential to succeed and do better in school with some guidance.

Another aspect of last week that stuck with me was a a conversation between myself and a few of the boys. We were talking about short term goals and what a pursuing a goal means and one boy stated his short term goal was to make time to go trick or treating on Halloween with his brother. One boy from Haiti mentioned that make home in Haiti they don't celebrate Halloween. Immediately the two other boys starting saying that that was not true and I could tell the student felt uncomfortable so I took this as a teaching opportunity to talk about different cultures. The boy mentioned how in his culture he celebrates the day of the dead on November 1st and I mentioned how in my religion we celebrate all saints day on November 1st. I told the other boys how Halloween as they think of it is not celebrated the same way in all cultures. They seemed to me as if they understood and the other boy looked like he felt better once we talked about how it wasn't weird or abnormal that he didn't celebrate Halloween by dressing up and going trick or tricking but just culturally different. This relates back to the Cultural Relevant Pedogogy theory about introducing students to other cultures.

EXPLORE week 4

This week at Shea we worked mostly in the computer lab on the Way-to-go RI website. We had students fill out what career/major they would be interested in and then we had them look at their high school schedule and compare it to the classes that the website indicates would match up with their desired/designated career and/or major they are interested in. The students when in the computer lab were very focused and engaged and that showed us that they were very interested in finding out what their high school plan should be and they were serious about the EXPLORE program. As we were leaving this past Tuesday one of the students said, "It stinks that you guys only come on Tuesdays." This one student in particular has a lot to say all of the time but he really enjoys the time that we spend together and cares about his future. This was a good experience this week at Shea, and we all could see that the students were there not just as a way to spend their afternoon but as a way to plan for their future.

Shea week 4

This week at Explore, we spent most of our time in the computer lab using the way to go RI site. The students were very engaged since it was interactive and they were working individually. I am glad that Shea has a computer lab so that we are able to use technology with the program. I hope that we are able to use the site again in future weeks. We announced that we are working on putting together a college visit to RISD and Brown and planning to see a PC basketball game, and the students were very interested in and excited about these activities. I think it will be a good experience for them to see what the college experience is like and what a college campus looks like.

Shea week 4!

I thought this week went well at Shea – we had a packed lesson, but overall it went smoothly. Carolyn conducted today’s lesson about Mastery and Future. We began by having everyone (including volunteers) create and decorate an EXPLORE! portfolio to track everything we’ve been doing this semester and keep a short journal with drawings or writing. Then, we spent the remainder of our time logging students on to waytogori.com, a website made to help students at all levels – elementary, middle, high school, college, and adult education. This site proved to be a useful and beneficial tool for students to select a possible career path, keep track of their classes, and take surveys indicating certain jobs that would be enjoyable for their specific interests. We also spoke about upcoming college visits and an upcoming PC basketball game that our group will hopefully be attending. Something that struck me today was the students’ focus and concern for their academic performance. Many of the students logged onto the school’s website which tracks their grades for each class. The students clearly took the grades seriously and tried to defend why a grade for a certain class was low. I think seeing this concern demonstrated further that these students are invested in their academics, rather than stuck in this ‘cool pose’ which Patterson argues is an issue for many students in urban schools. Overall, I think Carolyn’s lesson really outlined the ways in which goal-setting even at the high school level can ultimately affect the long-term goals that these students obviously have.

Mt. Pleasant Week 3

Today our topic for the lesson was "College Conversations". We began our session by doing an ice-breaker (2 truths and a lie) which was difficult to get through with the group as a whole due to student interruptions, joking around, and a few students who were being shy. Then our facilitator for the day explained the activity called "Agree or Disagree", which involved her stating a common myth about college and the students would have to go to one side of the room depending on if they agreed or disagreed about the statement. Some of the myths included: -I do not have to go to class and I can still do well in college -I have to be best friends with my roommates - The cafeteria food is going to be gross - I can party all the time and still do well in school - I have to join fraternities/sororities and/or clubs to make friends in college -My major will determine my future life etc. Once the students went to either side of the room we would ask why they agreed or disagreed, and the PC leaders would give their opinion based on college experiences. Some of the students didn't the activity easy, however, I do think it was successful in getting most of the students to think about some of these issues involving college life. Next, we broke up into groups of 5 with 2 PC leaders per group. In our groups we asked the students to come up with a question or fear they have regarding college and the PC leaders would do their best to answer honestly. Some of the concerns that came up in my group included majors, classes, partying, dorm life, extra-curricular activities, and how to balance all the work. I feel we had some good discussion in our small groups and it really gave our students insight about college life. I enjoyed working in smaller groups because I feel we are able to accomplish more rather than being one large group. In addition, students are less shy when it comes to only working with a few other students. I enjoyed the topic of "College Conversations" because it was easy to openly talk about and share my experiences with the students.