city year for kids aka winter break aka camp

alright, so the last week was CYFK -- the spring break we don't have as a corps because we are putting on a winter break vacation camp for kids at four sites around boston.

my team got placed at a largely spanish-speaking site, which was a blessing for me because i was beginning to feel useless at city year. not to say that i don't contribute in other projects, but i felt that my impact with children was no longer existent. i'm glad i got placed at that site because i got to use my skills that i am most proud of (making lessons entertaining, speaking spanish)... the lesson part came from city year and the spanish part has to do with my background.

i miss the spanish at this job, something that i hadn't realized would happen. in my previous work experiences, spanish was always something that was highly valued and utilized constantly. at city year, sometimes i translate applications, surveys or other documents but there is rarely an opportunity to speak. there are only a few corps members that speak spanish fluently, so for camp confirmations, i got tasked with making most of the spanish phone calls with 3 other people.

the theme at camp was superheroes, and we had superhero PT ready for the kids, which they definitely enjoyed once they realized everyone was going to look a fool doing it. i got to be a service activity leader with a fellow co-worker (nice to interact outside of my team) and we had a blast. our curriculum included recycling, planting seeds in cups, learning about plant parts, and brainstorming reduce/reuse/recycle ideas. the kids loved it for sure and the team leaders got involved because we asked them to and i think that it rounded out the experience for the kids. it was a service-learning curriculum, which made for an interesting interpretation from the rest of the corps... we usually think of service as painting, building stuff or landscaping.

something like a breakthrough

so, once upon a time, i trailed a kid around school for an hour and a half because i was worried about him. and every once in a while he would turn around and scream in my face "I HATE YOU! WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?!" and other variations of that sentence. and it hurt my feelings. i am a very sensitive person, and i have cried every day i've been back since january 7th. it's a personal record, i think. i'm not upset about me crying at all, its just how i get things out.

so this kid, he's mine. as in, he's from my fifth grade classroom and he is a pretty wonderful human being regardless. when i slipped and smacked the ice with the back of my head, he was the first one there saying "yo, that's my teacher, get your hands off her, help her sit up!" and i think sometime this month it clicked that i'm actually NOT leaving. i'm actually going to come and stay until june. until they all graduate and move onto the sixth grade at their respective middle schools. and that gives me mad legitimacy in his eyes. he told me about how last night at taekwondo afterschool some kid dislocated his thumb and his teacher popped it back in. then he leans in and whispers, "but don't tell anyone, cause i don't want them nagging on me." and i'm like, alright, this could be good. we're reading a book together and today he asked me if i wanted to take it home.

i love them all. they are all incredibly ridiculous, but they are so bright and wonderful when nobody is screaming at them. even the tiny skinny one that pulls on my hand all the time, regardless of how many times i've asked him not to pull on my sleeve anymore because i can't handle all that closeness. and the girls with the fifth grade attitude. sometimes it makes me want to laugh, but i can't because these are super serious things for them. super serious. and i try to keep it all in check and later i just smile reliving the day that i had in service.

publishing party!

so yesterday, for the first time ever, we went to school on a friday. my team showed up bright & early at 8am (really, 7:30 since we like to be on time which means early to everything) to be a part of the school wide publishing party.

usually on fridays we have training via LDD (leadership development days) or physical service. yesterday, we got special permission to meet up at our service sites later in the day in order to participate in the publishing party. honestly, i think it was an amazing decision from site leadership to give us the opportunity to be at our school for an event that clearly held a lot of significance for our students.

for the past few weeks, all of the students at our school have been working on publishing some personal narrative writing pieces. that meant for us, typing up stories, conferencing one-on-one and getting students to flesh out the details of their narratives. on thursday afternoon, i found myself in a chatoic grade 1 lab classroom where i also worked with two students on putting their book together, four pictures and four sentences (captions) so that they could present them to their parents on friday morning. it was just the referesher i needed.

my students were surprised to see me on friday and the excitement didn't wear off at all, per usual. friday morning when i walked into my classroom i was bombarded by kids wanting me to help them draw their cover pages. i figured, why not? they told me what they wanted and i drew block letters. because my drawing skills don't go much beyond that.

the time came to share their stories and even though i'd had the chance to work on the stories individually with my kids, it was excellent to hear them read the stories outloud. we had an audience of 1 (a dad that came a little late) and a lot of support from each other. most of the stories were about the world's most loving mother or father. one of my kids, whose father recently passed away, wrote about his father and how he had taught him how to take care of his mother when he was gone. it touched me. inside. a lot. another kid had written "my mother is the mom foster kids dream of" in his original narrative, but that line (my favorite) had gotten edited by the teacher. earlier in the week another student had asked me how to spell e-roma, like the smell of things. and i had to make him look it up in the dictionary so he would believe that it was aroma. my mentees had great narratives about their families, with lots of details.

there was so much LOVE in that room i wanted to burst. sometimes they are so mean to each other, but the love they felt for their parents and relatives is so very real that i am so happy i was there to share the publishing party experience because i felt like i was able to learn a little bit more about each of them.