Blog Post 2

I volunteer at St.Anna’s on Monday evenings. For the evening program, the kids come in usually at 3:30 right after they get off of school. I will typically pair up with one or two kids and help them with their homework. Sometimes the kids are cooperative and other times they show a lot of frustration. This is understandable, though, because the kids have been sitting in a classroom all day and are being forced to sit down and do more school work. After the students complete their homework, I check for errors and completion. This homework and tutoring process is interesting because it can be either very exciting or difficult. Sometimes the kids work independently and seem proud of their ability to do so– it’s nice to see their confidence. Other times this process is more difficult because I find that I need to continually find creative ways to explain concepts or get the kids to become more engaged. One day I had to help a second grade girl come up with a sentence using the word “culture.” After asking her a few questions and trying to see how she view the word culture, she ended up talking to me about the singer Selena for the rest of the day. Her enthusiasm was infectious and I was really impressed with how much she knew. Volunteers were encouraged at the training session to be a person that these kids can talk to and express themselves, even if the topic seems random or endless. It was nice to sit there and listen to her talk about Selena for hours because I knew she appreciated having someone listen and help her make her homework more approachable.

Once homework is over with, the students choose a book to read and read for thirty minutes. Depending on their age and reading level, students will sometimes read a paragraph or page and I will read the next paragraph or page. After the students complete a book, they create a sheet which answers questions about characters, plot, and conclusions; this allows us to see how the students are doing with reading comprehension. We were taught in the training session that most of the kids’ instant reaction to situations is anger and aggression. I noticed this the other day while helping one student in-particular with his reading. He had one page left and was dreading creating the reading comprehension sheet. He started kicking his chair and throwing pencils. I realized eventually that this reaction was because he was intimidated by the comprehension sheet and was not confident in his ability to complete it. I anticipated tantrums and aggressive reactions from the kids, but now realize that it’s not just for no reason or simply because these children become angry easily. I hope that I can become more in-tuned to why these tantrums start and learn to prevent them by getting to know the kids more. 

During our cluster conversation the other day, Paul was telling me about his topic, fate, for his critical concepts blog. I immediately saw a correlation between fate and Anna’s Arts for Kids. In the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, readers know immediately how the tragedy will end because we are explicitly told. In a sense, some of these children are perceived to have a certain “fate” due to their family lives, economic status, and race. For example, one of the directors told us that some of these kids’ families are in the drug trade, so selling and doing drugs is just what’s naturally in store for them and that it’s literally their “fate.” However, seeing the confidence that these children have and just how intelligent they are, I know that fate does not have to be such a definite thing as it is in Shakespeare.