On Friday, I was thanked profusely, almost desperately, for
my efforts in the classroom. The thing in particular that my praiser noted is,
to my delight, what I’ve been trying to work on—the hands-on approach to the
children. As much as I sort of conceptualized for you in the last post my
methodology, this type of treatment really just seems intuitive to me. Sister M
(the one offering this compliment) told me that she rarely, if ever, sees the
mentors actually playing or even merely conversing casually with the children
beyond the rigid events of their daily schedule. As soon as the mentors are
done instructing, dictating, or rebuking, they become more reserved towards the
children, preferring to chitchat amongst themselves. I suppose this makes sense
considering the children usually provide each other entertainment (they are by
no means just sitting around), but how does one justify being there on a daily
basis if they’re not continuously interactive with the children? The emotional,
supportive foundation of this program seems heavily dependent on instilling
value by way of attention and relationship building.
Admittedly,
I’ve been doing my job a considerably less amount of time than any of the
mentors. Some jading is bound to sneak in. Also, their opportunities for
interaction are seemingly infinite. If they come in with a spirit less than
bounding, they always have the next day, week, or year to finish the job. The
brevity of our program makes our work more urgent. Our window is much smaller.
This is interesting, however, because it is not an entirely realistic work
model. Knowing that our efforts for whatever particular organization we are
interning with are technically temporary, we can justifiably exhaust ourselves.
We may never work with the same demographic, region, or issue ever again. This
position is perhaps dangerous because it might allow us a false sense of
superiority. This is something to be mindful of.
On
a completely tangential note, I’ve found the simple notion of communication to
be frustrating recently. For instance, part of the curriculum preparation
includes crafting and filling “mystery boxes” full of items relating to the
stories we'll be teaching on. I’ve been responsible for sifting through stories, picking out important
objects that could manifest themselves as items in the “mystery box”. I was
under the impression that we were trying to be economical with the items so for
a number of them, I opted to make colorful, construction paper replicas as
opposed to purchasing everything from the store. I’m by no means the best
artist, but I was relatively proud of the work I’d spent a few hours on. I did
not, however, explicitly consult my supervisor about the specifics of this
project. This sort of statement might give the impression that I’m ominously
foreshadowing an altercation, but I’m not. I was only given a mild complaint
that perhaps the objects should be more tangible. This makes a lot sense in
retrospect (especially when I’m mindful of how distractible these children
are—they probably could not care less about my excuses for cutouts)—I just wish
I had been given more direction and rigidity in terms of their expectations.
This doesn’t mean we will scrap everything I’ve been working on—it just sets me
back a few hours and makes me feel a little less useful. Oh well.
In
general, I find communication about these open-ended kinds of projects to be a
bizarre fear of mine. In hopes that I won’t have to change the way I think is
right to approach a project (to make my work seemingly irreversible), I often
times consciously/subconsciously (I’m still deciding) allow myself to become
too far invested in a project and only ask for approval after I’ve made
considerable progress. This is weird and also something I should consider being
mindful of.
Anyway,
as much as I complain and philosophize, the time I spend with the children is a
whole lot of fun. If I’m not making them any more insightful or responsible, I
hope I’m at least making their lives a little happier.
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