Educating America's Youth (without strangling them first)

Hope I don't get in trouble for that subject line. If you can't tell, we have now begun our third project-- working at Larchmont Elementary School in North Highlands, CA. While there is a plethora of things to fill in the blank about the Special Olympics project, I feel I need to go right into my initial thoughts about the current one.

For some background Larchmont is K-6, operates out of a fairly nice looking but somewhat troubled neighborhood, and has a really excellent staff from whom I have met thus far. The look of Californian schools is slightly different from the Midwestern sort in that they operate in multiple buildings in different rows separated roughly by grade-level. They remind me a lot of the kind of school that Colin taught in during Peace-Corps: very open air, a bit closer to nature, and at this time of year a tit bit nipply due to the deceptively sunny but chilly wind one has to deal with while walking between classes. They have a really nice large paved area for recess, one that I'm jealous of even ten years out of elementary school. There's a lot of room for 4 square, basketball, football tossing, and tag, etc. It's been nice for me during recess now since I never really liked recess as a kid due to my utter lack of coordination. I was more of a swings person myself.

Our reception has been great thus far due to the paving of our way by a former AmeriCorps team. This has led to odd results too, but I'll mention that later. We came in last Thursday and were recieved with a sort of awe by most of the children, though now it has happily faded to being a little more down to earth. They all seem to know all our names by now, though I couldn't tell you the names of more of than a handful of them. Before they all wanted to be our best friends because Gold 7 had been their best friends, but now that we have been assigned to our classrooms they are realizing that we are a kind of Teacher Jr. We're in the weird limbo of buddy/authority and it puts you in strange positions. All that a lot of them want to do is talk to you about their dog, or their uncle that smells like you, or about teaching you a new handshake while the teacher expects them to be doing their work with you. I've been at a loss in more than one instance as to how I can reroute the conversation from their dog back to doing research about opossums. It's a fine line to walk.

It's even stranger for me because I don't consider myself a kid person. I've been lucky to have Isaac for a nephew because he's basically just an undersized adult. The kid's favorite show is Man vs. Wild for Pete's sake. I haven't had a lot of trouble talking to him because he's a bright energetic one. The kids I've been doing one-on-ones with have been much more of a challenge. Most of the matchups that we've had are with the children that need the most help, and rightly so. Both my 5th and 5th/6th grade classes that I've been assigned to have 25+ students per class and the teachers are stretched thin even with the less challenging children. The problem is that these ones that need the most help are the most complex to deal with, and we have no skills besides our wits (and our patience aka restraint) to direct these guys. Yeah we can be role models and go through things, but I haven't had but a few small 'aha' moments for the myriad of information that I've been trying to drive into their brains.

I also think I've been singled out for the hardest work because I'm one of about 2 on the team that feels confident talking about math. This brings special difficulties: one because of the age group that I've been assigned to 5th, 6th, and 3rd. Third is just getting into long division and actual complex math. This means that they are finding for the first time that if they haven't picked up on some basic concept early like multiplication tables that it is going to haunt them down the line. Basically 3rd grade begins the early stages of dislike of math that flowers into a deep hatred of the stuff. Most times it takes until middle school or even high school for some people to understand that they despise math to the depths of their bowels, but many of the 'quick learners' seem to have discovered this by 5th or 6th grade.

For all of the headaches thus far, I'm fairly optimistic about this project. A few of my teammates that had been having a lackluster time in the program seem to have been re-energized by this project, and it's been good to see. Personally I was hoping for a manual-labor-environmental-type project for this round, but I'm sure I'll get a lot out of this one just as I've been happily surprised about the last one. I bet TAing for a bunch of undergrads in a few years is going to seem like a piece of cake.