Adventure #3: The First Day of Work

Today was not what I expected.  I thought I was coming here to teach preschool, and that I would occasionally have to fill in with other age groups when needed.  But today, I was put in with the Older School Agers (ages 8-11), and I think it might be permanent.   This was kind of disappointing because a) I know what I'm doing more with preschoolers than I do with school agers in a non-school environment, and b) this feels like babysitting, and I thought I came here to teach.

But, anyhow.  Unexpected does not equal a bad experience, just an unprepared Debbie.  The other teachers were very nice and helpful.  The kids were LOUD but likable.  When I first came in, most of the boys were huddled around a kid watching him play his Nintendo DS, and most of the girls were jumping rope.  There were 15 kids in the older school age group.  All of them are African-American, except for one white girl and a Puerto Rican boy who wasn't there today.  Around 10, we went to the playground a couple of blocks away.  We stayed there for about an hour, and then came back for lunch.  After lunch we went to a larger gym area for three hours while the preschoolers and babies were napping.  They like to play dodgeball and sing and dance.  During this time, we took turns taking hour-long lunch breaks.  I brought a lunch and walked back to the playground/Community Center where we went at the beginning of the day to eat it.  At 3 we went back to the classroom area and the kids had snack/supper soon after that.  They had a lengthly discussion about what makes a person Muslim.  One kid must have declared about fifty time, "If your mom is Muslim and she's your real mom, not your stepmom or an adopted mom, then you're Muslim."  After supper, we just kind of hung out in the classroom area while kids were picked up for the remainder of the day.  My main complaint is that there doesn't seem like there's much for them to do during the free times, and no organized activity - but then, I guess that is probably my job!  It seems very similar to the summer camp where I worked for two summers during college.  I loved that job, so hopefully this one will grow on me.  I don't know what happens when school starts, though.  The center Director wasn't there today....maybe that's a question that I can ask tomorrow.

Probably my favorite part of today was playing catch and "Side Ball" with an up and coming first grade boy.  The object of Side Ball is basically to throw the ball past the other person.  We also played monkey in the middle.  He became my buddy for awhile.  Another cool part, also in the gym area, was when the girls performed a Talent Show while the boys played a modified version of basketball, using two toy shopping carts for the hoops.  It's kind of interesting, because I remember that at summer camp in Watsontown, they put on a Talent Show just about every day.  Some things are the same everywhere, I guess.

In conclusion: Even though I was disappointed with where I ended up today, there were also good things that happened.  And, there's a lot to work on.  I like a challenge. 

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."
-Confucious