Dodge Nature Center Post IV

When we went around the group and highlighted some conflicts we'd encountered at our sites I couldn't come up with anything at all. While having no real issues should come as a comfort, I felt uneasy, as though there was something I was overlooking. I'm still thinking this through.

Working at Dodge Nature Center has been an amazing experience. The Preschool is highly organized, the director has hired an amazing staff, the student teachers are bright and eager to learn, and the kids have access to SO many learning tools. From nature walks to holding newborn chicks, these kids have it all. The curriculum is well developed, with a good balance of kid-directed free play both indoors and out and structured learning. This place has not ceased to astound me.

Perhaps there in lies my issue - this small group of children have the privilege of attending a highly specialized and exceptional preschool - what about all the other 4-year-olds in the Twin Cities? Families pay a hefty tuition to enroll their 3-5 year olds in Dodge Preschool, this was evident from the first moment I set foot inside. Money, it always seems to come back around to money. So should I feel bad for spending my community engagement hours helping out at a specialty preschool? Would my time be better spent elsewhere? A place where I could perhaps play a role in designing environmental curriculum, or work towards granting low-income kids access to woods, farms and wildlife. That said, what about the kids at Dodge? They're great little people - intelligent, inquisitive, imaginative and hilarious- and it's not their fault that their families happen to be able to afford this school

Kids are kids are kids. Everywhere you go, they're always going to be wild energetic curious little ragamuffins. They will always need our support, our guidance, an education and strong adult role models. As I learned from the Search Institute, it's not just low income youth who encounter deficits in their developmental environments, all children are coming up short in some realm or the other, so perhaps my observations concerning Dodge and the preschoolers are too narrow.

Dodge Nature Center Post IV

When we went around the group and highlighted some conflicts we'd encountered at our sites I couldn't come up with anything at all. While having no real issues should come as a comfort, I felt uneasy, as though there was something I was overlooking. I'm still thinking this through.

Working at Dodge Nature Center has been an amazing experience. The Preschool is highly organized, the director has hired an amazing staff, the student teachers are bright and eager to learn, and the kids have access to SO many learning tools. From nature walks to holding newborn chicks, these kids have it all. The curriculum is well developed, with a good balance of kid-directed free play both indoors and out and structured learning. This place has not ceased to astound me.

Perhaps there in lies my issue - this small group of children have the privilege of attending a highly specialized and exceptional preschool - what about all the other 4-year-olds in the Twin Cities? Families pay a hefty tuition to enroll their 3-5 year olds in Dodge Preschool, this was evident from the first moment I set foot inside. Money, it always seems to come back around to money. So should I feel bad for spending my community engagement hours helping out at a specialty preschool? Would my time be better spent elsewhere? A place where I could perhaps play a role in designing environmental curriculum, or work towards granting low-income kids access to woods, farms and wildlife. That said, what about the kids at Dodge? They're great little people - intelligent, inquisitive, imaginative and hilarious- and it's not their fault that their families happen to be able to afford this school

Kids are kids are kids. Everywhere you go, they're always going to be wild energetic curious little ragamuffins. They will always need our support, our guidance, an education and strong adult role models. As I learned from the Search Institute, it's not just low income youth who encounter deficits in their developmental environments, all children are coming up short in some realm or the other, so perhaps my observations concerning Dodge and the preschoolers are too narrow.

More from Maxfield

I apologize for this extra long blog post. I apparently did not post it for two weeks ago, but you will definitely be able to tell the difference in my experience and conundrum.

At the halfway point of my work at Maxfield, I am stuck in an interesting position. I am really pleased to share with you all that my relationship with the boys in my class has really become strong. From the beginning, it has been pretty apparent that they prefer me over the paid worker, mostly because she needs to issue ultimatums and punishment to get them to work, while I have been the fun guy who helps them out with their math, teaches them “tricks,” and also plays basketball with them during choice time. Though all of that has stayed the same, they have seemed to become more attached to me. The last two weeks, they were really excited to see me after the two week break from ACES. They were more than excited than normal when my colleague and I came in, and, while they were working on their homework, Ernest came up to me and started asking me about his science class. This was a first, and it was a bit more alarming because ACES only really addresses math and reading. But really, I was quite glad that he was comfortable enough to come to me and ask me straightaway. So I really feel like my role, for these few boys, seems to be growing.
But, on the flip side, I really feel like my role with the girls has not progressed. It’s not that they don’t follow directions or heed my advice when I work with them one on one. They just seem to be far less comfortable with me than the boys do. For instance, the boys always are more than willing to get up and come over to me and ask me questions when they are stuck, whereas the girls will just sit and not do anything if they are stuck or, far more frequently, they go on to distract the rest of their peers. This is where one of my perceptions changed during this program. I thought it would take longer for me to bond with the boys in the class than it would be with the girls. Given the fact that I have a younger sister and my two best friends are girls, I thought that I would be able to connect with them quickest. I was also under the impression that an older guy in the class may intimidate the boys, therefore making our connection more difficult to establish. Needless to say, both of these theories were completely and totally wrong. What should I do to help my connection with the girls? I really don’t want to only be effective with the boys, with the girls not gaining anything from my being in the program. I really hope that somehow I can sort this out. I want to be helpful for all of the kids in my class, both the guys and the girls.

Now on to the current blog post.

My major concern that I had when I addressed the group as a whole was that my connection with the girls in my class was far less involved than my connection with the boys. The week after I had this conversation with my peers, I attempted to use their insights to try and close this gap.
After the first two and a half hours, I witnessed this gap close, but not in the way I was hoping. Instead of the level of my relationship with the girls rising to meet the boys’ level, the exact opposite occurred. They were unsettled and distracted all day, and when I tried to get them back on task they wouldn’t have any of it. A major launching point for this behavior was the appearance of Hamarian, a boy in their 5th grade class who has been suspended from after-school programming since a time before my arrival at Maxfield. The boys seem to rally around him. He is intelligent, athletic and more physically mature than his peers, and what’s worse is that he knows it. He flies through his homework at the beginning of the session, and instead of constructively helping his peers, like Ernest has in the past, Hamarian prefers to use his free time to distract the other boys. So instead of being focused on becoming more involved with the boys, I spent my whole day trying to find a way to work with Hamarian, and my results proved to be futile.
One week later, I came into class ready to get involved with the girls while trying to find a way to get Hamarian to accept me as an authority figure. The fifth-graders had just completed a state mandated day of testing, so we knew the workload would be light and the rest of the instructors and I all agreed that allowing the students to relax after the testing would be more beneficial than the normal program. Additionally, a different after school program had changed it’s schedule to include Tuesdays. It is a program that is geared toward the boys, however Hamarian was still suspended from participating in it, so he stayed at ACES with the girls.
For the first thirty minutes, he acted out more vigorously than he had in the previous week, so my fellow instructor and I had to remove him from the rest of the class to cool off. In the mean time, I was able to interact with the girls in a more relaxed setting, playing hangman and building a “house”. I felt like my connection with the girls may have grown as a result, but I will know more about that after my session this upcoming Tuesday. Additionally, Hamarian saw how much fun we were having and elected to join in. He was actually very constructive and helped the group solve the word puzzle on more than one occasion. I was able to conclude that, in order for Hamarian to be an active asset in the class, I will need to find a way for him to come to me and interact on his terms, while still remaining within the constraints of a system where I am an authority figure.
One interesting incidental learning experience I have had from my placement is that the students separate classroom interaction from choice time interaction quite starkly. Additionally, some of the more involved instructors prefer to stand away from the group while the kids are playing and observe, rather than get into the activity with their students. It’s interesting that they can be so active in the classroom, but once we get outside, these great instructors seem to care much less about working with their students.

Few challenges here and there, but I am loving it....

The only challenge I came across in my placement is not being able to convince the students that I am here because I care. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I have been able to form friendship with some of them but have not been able to form a good friendship or relationship with more than half of them. When I brought this challenge to my peer workshop, they were very understanding and some of them also had similar challenges. One advice I got was that, as a volunteer I could only do so much. Also to have such a high expectations from few weeks with the students may not realistic, I have realized myself. These students have seen volunteers come and go for years, so who am I to expect that they would think other wise about me?

With the few weeks I have left, at least officially, I am trying to have interactions with most of the students as I can. I am hoping that my plan to continue volunteering during the summer will be a good opportunity for me to connect with the ones I would not be able to by the end of the semester.

One of the science teacher is recovering from a hear attack, so during her period there is less order in the class. Even though most of the students need to work on english, math or social science to earn credits to graduate, most of them do not want to do anything. Now that the weather is nice outside, the students are more being outside than in the classroom. I tried to help Twaine with his math and English credits, but he told me he was not up to it. Well, most of them, including Twian, had the MCA exam, so it is understandable that he is tired. But other students who did not have any exams did not want to do anything. The sad part is that some of these students need just 2 or 3 more credits to graduate. I want them to graduate, as badly as they do, but it is hard to get them to do something.

It is funny you ask about volunteer interactions, because I think I have an interesting one. Over the 3 hours period I volunteer, there are 4 volunteers. I get there first so I am already helping one of the students when they get there. Most of the time I am with Twain, either working on math or art project. However, when one of the volunteers (I do not remember her name) comes, she is constantly trying to take him from me. I honestly do not know why. Sometimes if she is working with him on his art project, I sit with them so I know what’s up and also give ideas and suggestion when I can. However, whenever I talk she totally ignores me. I don’t care whether she likes me or not, but I just want us to behave as grown up adults when we are with him. I don’t know if he notices it, but I get worried this is just a bad example for him. My solution to this is just to keep quite. If I do meet him sitting alone or with someone else, then I will give him my suggestions. I do not know if it is something I said or something I have done, but she clearly does not like me. I have a good relationship with the other volunteers. If one of us come a bit late and do not know what the students are working on, the other volunteer will explain. They are super helpful and new friends!

Generally, I am in a good place with my placement. As I said, I am planning on continuing working for the organization over summer. So I feel like I still have time to get to know and help most of the students.

Last Week of CLUES

This week was the last week of the CLUES Learning Together Program, an occasion we marked with ice cream and a piñata. The piñata event had taken half an hour longer than the usual program time, and we were itching to get out the door. As the last parents straggled out the door, dragging their kids who were struggling to hold on to all of their piñata loot, on of the older kids said rather cryptically, “I’ll miss school on Wednesdays.” The program coordinator thanked us profusely for coming every week, and said that without reliable childcare, the program could not have happened. We thanked her for the opportunity to practice our Spanish and hang out with kids, and then we left for the CEC-sponsored ice cream reflection on the experience. Here are some of my reflections: maybe the frustration I have had with the program for its haphazard volunteer crew assembly, irrelevant curriculum, and the lack of cohesiveness within my volunteer group were much less important to the actual program than they were to my satisfaction as a volunteer, which maybe has more to do with me than with the organization. The program coordinator emphasized the importance of having reliable childcare; while I had been critical of the manner in which the childcare had been carried out, the kids certainly had fun and were safe and the parents could go on with their workshop knowing that their children were being well supervised. And the kids did not notice that we had been unable to implement the lessons suggested by the program, they just had fun running themselves into cranky exhaustion every Wednesday evening. I do think that the process and commitment of the volunteer group is still a valid concern. The group of 5 of us who volunteered at CLUES just signed up for the job without any time of selection process, training, or expectation about our participation in the commitment. We came at it from different places and expecting different outcomes; I think that it would be valuable for future groups to think through their goals for participating in civic engagement and establish a group vision with a mechanism to process, reflect and assess whether or not we are meeting those goals. I think this intentionality would benefit the volunteers primarily, but also improve the interaction between Macalester students, the partner organization, and the participants in the program. I think I learned a little bit about the different advantages students have depending on how capable their parents are at navigating the exosystem and macrosystem through their access to the mesosystem. I think I learned more about my needs in the context of civic engagement activity, and I think I would like to do this program again with a space for more formal process.

Cultural Specificity at Dodge Nature Center

Hey y'all, I completely forgot to upload this one...apologies...

The word culture brings to mind recognizable and well-defined groups – Latino immigrants in the Twin Cities, Native American tribal constituencies, The GLBT community, certain religious persuasions with strong community bonds such as the Jewish or Amish –for example. Each come with a specific cultural framework. Environmental education however, did not make my list. Sure there’s a culture to environmentalism, characterized by certain catch phrases such as: the green movement, sustainable development, conservation, preservation, and many other familiar terms. But in some ways the culture of environmentalism is divisive, pulling each person towards their specific interests and their fight for sustainability, while other cultural frameworks serve as a point of unity.

The Dodge Nature Center is not culturally specific per say, but adheres to a certain frame work – that we are all students of the land and have a responsibility to respect and care for the environment – which, in the end fosters its own unique culture. It acts as a jumping off point for curriculum, the daily classroom atmosphere, and the way teachers approach their work. For example, the preschool teachers are always on the look out for new and exciting ways to team up with DNC naturalists for new class material. In my time there we’ve had the opportunity to tap trees for maple syruping and have gone on countless nature walks. The kids have been able to see lambs and piglets on the same day as their birth and have an astounding grasp on animal tracks, plant biology, and all sorts of interesting topics.

In some ways it is very strange for me to be working at preschool on the grounds of a nature preserve. It seems a bit ridiculous, like it can’t possibly be real, but there it is, right in West St. Paul, on 320 acres of land. I’ve found myself torn between excitement that kids can have the opportunity to experience nature and animals and farming first hand at such a young age and discomfort with the fact that it is a very expensive program which greatly limits the ability for children of low-income families to participate.

It seems to me that environmental based education is either a thing of the rich or a form of after-school program for youth in urban areas. There is a disconnect between sustainability/outdoor education programs and the school system at large. Perhaps this paradigm will undergo a shift soon, we may very well be in the middle of it now.

MNIC updates

I am pretty comfortable at the stage I am now with my placement. I have been able to form a solid friendship with 4 of the student, which I am really happy about. I feel like for the students I am not longer “this stranger who comes to class once a week” but have now transition some of the students saying “ hey Selam, are you coming next week.”

Last week I had the most unforgettable event happen. I walked in to the classroom, said hi to the students and the teacher and sat down. However, it did not take me long to realize that Twain was not in the class. I asked the teacher. He told me he will probably not show up, as most of his friends from other schools will be on their Spring break and hence he would want to hang out with them. Just when he finished explaining, Twain walked in. He did not seem like in a good mood. The teacher saw him and told him “she asked about you as she walked in” and his response was “ ohh that is really nice. It is nice to have people who care.” Seeing that I was able to him better by just doing something simple like this was beyond me. I was really touched. I went ahead to ask him why he did not look happy. He told me that when he was at school last week, he had to baby sit his niece at the same time. So, he decided to bring him along but he was told to leave because of that. I gathered they could have a rule against it as it would be destruction. This is kind of a though spot to be. I did not want to say what they did was wrong, neither did I want to say he is right (even though that was what I felt like saying.) I just listened. So incidents like this where I feel like I am actually connected to their lives, makes me really happy and believe that I am doing the best I can.

However, there are still other students in the classroom I still have not been able to reach out to. I still wonder why. I thought it was because I was spending too much time with the people I know already. So I decided to go around asking if they needed my help. This did not seem to work as most of them just said “no I do not need your help.” Most of them say it with an attitude I am still not used to. So it makes hard for me to try again. But then, I say to myself “ do not get ahead of yourself, you have just been here for few weeks. Not enough time for everyone to like you.” I guess which is why I am planning to do this during the summer too. May be if I stay that long, all the students will be convinced that I am there because I care.

With the kids of youth I am spending time with, I think everyday is a different experience. So I still think there is a lot to learn form my placement. The problem is I feel like time is not by my side. I am trying to push Twain to work on projects so that he can get the 4 credits he needs to graduate. As for Stephanie, I helped her with her geography project and she is determined to graduate at the end of this year. I specially wish I had more time when it comes to helping Tiffany. Having been moving to different places in the past few months, she has not been able to really focus on her schoolwork. She has not showed up to school in like two weeks. She is only two or three credits from getting her diploma., so with a little push, I know she will be able to make it – only if she could come to school more often.

As I mentioned earlier in my blog, I am also doing my internship at the same time. Hence, as I am tutoring these students I am also observing to see where their problems in life come from to aid my research in stress reduction practices. My hope for the rest of the semester is to finalize my research and produce something that would of help to these students.

CLUES update

CLUES is going much better at this point that it had been in the beginning of the semester. The other Macalester student volunteers and I have developed a routine for the evenings in response to their needs and through experimenting with the most effective distribution of volunteers. The kids know what to expect, which I think makes it much less stressful for them and lowers the formerly manic energy level of the group. Several families have dropped out of the program, so the smaller group is easier to facilitate in calmer activities, and I think the kids appreciate the increased attention. They recognize us when they arrive now, even the youngest toddlers. They do, however, continue to refer to us and address us as “Teacher.” I am not sure what to make of this; we did stop wearing our nametags after the first few weeks, and while we remember all of their names, it is understandable that they would not remember ours. But I think it is still an interesting dynamic; is it because we appear significantly older than them and are thus generic “Teacher” authorities because we are in a school space, or is it because our perceived identities correspond to the roles of power they typically experience?

We are supposed to be following a curriculum roughly parallel to the themes that parents discuss every week, such as goal setting, health, and academic achievement. Our group is conflicted about whether we should push the lesson activities on the kids, who would clearly prefer to engage in more active play, or respect the programs’ goals of encouraging more explicit aspects of youth development. I hope that the students are not expected to be receiving significant educational benefits from the program, because while we facilitate social interaction and problem solving in the context of group play, the curriculum we are expected to follow is secondary to our goals of maintaining their interest and peace given limited space and resources. This makes me question the appropriateness of allowing untrained volunteers to do important work in youth development in the absence of more qualified people; it seems like more training should be required, which is probably challenging given tight budgetary constraints.

I have noticed a lot of material in the school that reflects the theory we have discussed in class; there are folkloric dancing classes and Latin American heritage is celebrated in hallway art (“la cultura cura”), there is emphasis on healthy eating choices throughout the school, and there does seem to be a valorous effort to make constructive use of traditionally out-of-school time. As it is a bilingual school (only phonic and reading are conducted in English, according to the 2^nd graders in the program), I am interested in how that affects the development of their identity, particularly in terms of role models and culturally sensitive education.

Maxfield weeks 2 and 3

The goals that I find with the ACES program at Maxfield are to provide a safe environment for students, to offer positive adult role models for students, and to provide relevant experiences, both inside and outside the classroom. These goals are explicitly stated in our volunteer meeting room as well as on the front page of our volunteer handbook. We do our best to carry these out in the program. I think that ACES embraces the different cultures Maxfield’s students bring to the table, however the vast majority of students who participate in the program come from African-American backgrounds. As I talked about in my first post, ACES was eager to drop their curriculum for a week to accommodate Ramsey’s preparations for Parent’s Night. When students asked my why they were participating in these skits and musical numbers, I would reply that it is important for their family to understand that the school and our program value their cultural background, and that it is important to stay in touch with their culture.
I experience intercultural interactions every day that I step into my fourth graders’ classroom. They are always singing the latest songs and dancing around during the period between the end of school and the beginning of ACES. Because I am the new guy, and therefore inherently interesting, they always ask me if I had heard the songs before, to which I normally date myself by replying no. They start trying to teach me the songs for the rest of the session that day. This leaves me asking myself the question: should I start lying and saying that I do in fact know the songs so it doesn’t take time out of ACES’ curriculum.
I had an interesting experience two weeks ago with a pair of my male students. I was helping them out with their long division by using money as a way to divide by 25. This led them to ask how much money I carry around on a daily basis. I responded (truthfully) that I carry around roughly $15. They were stunned. They suddenly asked me if I attended college. They were perplexed by the fact that I am basically broke but I am still in college, because, apparently, they have been given the impression that only rich people can go to college. For the first time, I really understood a reason why people dismiss college as a goal: you need to be rich. It was interesting watching them analyze my information on college loans and scholarships. It was also pretty entertaining to watch their reaction to the idea of someone paying for your college (in the form of scholarship). I have had a pretty good first three weeks at Maxfield, and I look forward to my visit next week.

Cultural Specificity at CLUES

CLUES attempts to bridge the cultural gap between mainstream public school education and Latino immigrants. It takes place in an English-Spanish bilingual school on the West Side, a largely Latino neighborhood. CLUES facilitates what in Spanish I think would be called "capacitaciones," capacity-building workshops. Last week someone from the local branch of the Saint Paul public Library talked to the parents about Spanish and English opportunities and resources, and this week a woman from La Clinica, a sliding-scale clinic serving primarily lower-income Latino families located in the West Side, came to speak about reproductive health, La Clinica and other health resources. All of these meetings are conducted in Spanish. That part of the program is explicitly intended to introduce Latino parents to resources and methods of parenting that will make their children more successful in this school system. While it is respectful of the parents' backgrounds (I believe the majority of them are originally from Mexico and Central America), it does not celebrate their culture so much as attempt to mediate and facilitate its intersection with mainstream United States institutional culture.

This approach is definitely committed to working within the system, rather than attempting to address underlying systems that cause students from Latino families to be less prepared for school, such as the parents’ job instability or lower earning potential (many parents are seasonal workers) in the exosystem, or larger political and cultural processes in the macrosystem. But in the work that it does to integrate Latino families into the school culture, albeit without much celebration of family culture, the program acknowledges a more immediate need than ones that could be addressed on the policy level; kids are not going to do as well in school if their parents have unstable employment, are unaware of access to affordable healthcare, or do not know how to use the free resources offered by the public library. I would argue that these are basic connections to be made and relatively unassociated with cultural practices. However, the next week’s theme is discipline, and I think this may implicitly address a cultural difference. While language or socioeconomics may prove to be barriers to the earlier topics, I think that discipline is a highly subjective and culturally informed style of parenting. And while perhaps the behavior of these children, unmitigated by the more dominant behavioral norms, is detrimental to their social relationships and ability to learn in the classroom, teaching parents how to discipline their kids necessarily privileges one culturally bound style over another. Perhaps this is what children need to succeed in the context they are given, but I think it needs to be interrogated more extensively.

My job is to provide childcare for the children while their parents participate in these workshops, and often discipline creates conflict. For example, last week, a 5-year-old boy was kicking some other children, and when reprimanded, dissolved into tears. His older siblings rushed to comfort him and his father even left the adult meeting to intervene. While childcare generally necessitate deferring to the parents’ preferred style of discipline, I felt this may have been an interaction informed by our different cultural experiences. I am eagerly anticipating the next session to see how the more theoretical topic navigates culture.

Cultural Specificity at MNIC

Even though MNIC is to serve any one from any race or culture, who are least likely to be served or wanted in other programs, as of know most of the population are African Americans with few immigrants form Ethiopia and Somalia. So, they have had to develop curriculums and activities that are mostly centered around the African American culture. For example, most of their stuffs are African American which helps because, form what I have seen so far, they feel a lot more comfortable talking to people who they can relate to. Another example is my researchs, which I have been told to focus on stress reduction for African American teens. A curriculum I just finished developing about nutrition also had me researching on the kind of food that is common among African American communities. All this is done with intent to reach out to the students with their culture in picture already.

Because I am normally there during class activities, I do not see them doing after-school activities. However, last week I got invited to a dance club the students have formed. They normally do hip-hop and dance-hall kind of dances. I was excited to have been invited to their practice sessions but I was told by one of the teachers that since they are the ones who run the club, they do not meet regularly. When I asked why not get them a teacher, they told me they want them to learn to be responsible for what they do (which I think it is a good reason.) So they have not been meeting for a while now. They also have a basket ball time, since most of the students are NBA fans and love basket ball.

Another activity they do is a credit-recovery project, where most of the students lean towards art. Pearson, who I have become friends with, is for example writing poems/lyrics and also giving interpretation (like the theme of the poem.) He let me read one of his poems and I was so surprised by how good he is and happy that he is also using this talent he has to express his feelings and problems. The other thing he is also doing is comparing the graffiti between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Since he is originally from Chicago but has been in the Twin Cities for a while now, he feels pretty good about this project. He hopes to also reproduce some of them in a more appropriate way.

All these examples show how MNIC, beside having the culture of the student at heart, it also lets them do what they want to do in a more constructive way. However, I wonder how the few others from a different culture feel. During one of the classes I attended, there were two people from Ethiopia and Somalia. The teacher was also African American like the rest of the students, so the whole conversation took place from their culture point of view, partially because there was no contribution from the Ethiopian and Somalia. Why? There is the language problem. They are both working on their English, which has limited their participation in class. The school has them enrolled in ESL class. So there is defiantly lack of intercultural interaction as the school is focused on African American teens - at least in the classrooms. But the school does arrange for students interested to have internships in places like Macalester (currently two students working with the sustainability office), which exposes the students to different cultures.

Week 1 at Maxfield

Hi all,

Sorry it took me so long to finally put this up. It wasn't a normal first week at Maxfield Magnet, as you will soon read all about!

Initially, my placement process proved to be a bit difficult. I had an inclination to work with ACES because I had prior knowledge to this program. However, it was difficult to figure out how to get involved because their contacts did not respond to me initially. Once Tina gave me more specific information from an ACES rep that had worked with Macalester in the past, the ball got rolling quickly and I was placed in less than 2 weeks. I learned that although ACES, like many programs, is in dire need of volunteers, they will not sacrifice the quality experience for the students that ACES strives for. They did a thorough background check and I also needed references in order to get in the door, which says quite a bit about how they run their program.

When I arrived at Maxfield for my first day, an ACES representative was waiting for me to give me a short orientation and to introduce me to the other members of our group. The group is composed of mainly current undergrads from local universities. Each class has one paid instructor who actually works part time for ACES, but because I am just a volunteer, I will be serving as an aid for a group of fourth graders. Instead of having a “normal” day, February 15th was actually Family Night at Maxfield, so as soon as our program would normally commence, we ushered them down to the gymnasium to rehearse for their various performances that would take place later that night. Although my first day was spent more as someone who supervised the students I will be working with in the coming weeks, I gained some interesting insight into the way they interacted with each other. Initially, they were antsy and difficult to control, but that is to be expected for any kid who has just gotten dismissed from school not twenty minutes earlier. Once we got them settled in and engaged in their responsibilities for the next few hours, their focus heightened and they became quite attentive. This made me interested to see if this is also the case in the classroom in the coming weeks, where reading and finishing math homework will replace drumming and singing. Although Family Night was not an ACES event, I was pleased to see that all of the volunteers still showed up and spent time with their students, even if it was not following the structure of a normal day. I get the feeling that the ACES coordinators understand how important it is for these kids to experience constant nurturing, both from interaction with their parents at family night, and from the consistent support of the ACES reps. As we have seen in class, the more developmental assets one student has in their lives, the more likely they are to succeed, which coincides well with the bottom line for ACES: the eventual success of their students.

Dodge Nature Center - Week 1

As of Friday my placement at the Dodge Nature Center has been solidified. I frankly could not be more excited that this has worked out so well. After a rough start, with a few dead-end placements pursued, Dodge has really come through. I'll be working two mornings a week with the preschool, spending my time in the Spruce room (all three classrooms are named for trees - Willow, Spruce, and Oak). In addition, I'm pursuing training as a Naturalist, which will set me up for more opportunities to participate at Dodge.

As I drove up to the 320 acre preserve tucked in between Marie Ave and Dodd Road in suburban Mendota Heights, I was overcome with a feeling of nostalgia and anticipation. I spent a few weeks of my summers attending camp at Dodge when I was younger and it had been a good ten years since I had been to the property. On the one hand I was excited to be back, but I also found myself worrying that my memories were giving it more credit than it deserved, or that I would be disappointed. At this point I'm already fairly certain that those concerns were unfounded.

On the whole I've been extremely pleased with and impressed by the faculty and staff at Dodge. At my preliminary interview on the 10th, I sat down with Sue, the volunteer coordinator, we chatted for a good twenty minutes about what's been going on at the Center, new programs, the change of seasons and the impact that will have on the farm and the preschool and the gardens, and generally about our mutual love of Environmental Education. After those twenty minutes Sue looked down at the papers in front of her and remembered that she was supposed to be interviewing me. We laughed and moved forward with the necessary procedures.

From there Sue connected me with two individuals - TJ the intern coordinator and Marty the director of the preschool. TJ and I met directly after Sue interviewed me and my final interview with Marty was last friday. Beginning this coming Wednesday my main contacts will be the three Spruce room teachers, Joey, Heather, and Marlais. I'm not really sure what to expect yet.

The classes are team taught by two head teachers and an assistant. That means that the 18 preschoolers are looking at a student/teacher ration of 3/18 or 1/6, which is very impressive by anyone's standards. The classrooms are very inspiring spaces, designed with many different nooks with varied focuses. There's an art area, a reading area, tables for writing excercises, and even an indoor loft/play area. THe rooms are packed full of kids art work and all sorts of stimulating toys. As a part of my interview with Marty I was given a tour while the kids were running around outside. Apparently the kids are outside everyday, unless the windchill is out of control, so they come bundled up and ready to get dirty. The staff all have different training backgrounds, some with environmental studies, others psychology, and numerous other undergraduate focuses, though all have completed a degree in Early Child Education.

At this point I feel i've begun rambling so I'll come to a close. I'll just say that I am convinced the Dodge Nature Center is going to be solid fit for me and I can not wait to get started.

CLUES

I have recently begun volunteering at CLUES, which stands for Comunidades Latinos Unidos en Servicio (Latino Communities United in Service). It is an organization that works with Hispanic communities in the Twin Cities to provide culturally appropriate behavioral health and human services. I am working with the family services branch of the organization to provide childcare during a weekly parent education session at the Riverview West Side School of Excellence. This is a bilingual (Spanish and English) K-6 elementary school in Saint Paul’s West Side. The program offers Spanish-language meetings that focus on issues like school readiness, saving for college, and communication between families and schools. In order to provide incentive and make it possible for parents to participate in the program, dinner and childcare are offered. Through the Civic Engagement Center, several other Macalester students and I run the children’s’ activities for the evening. We facilitate activities in Spanish based on a suggested lesson plan provided by CLUES, which is designed to correspond thematically with the adult topic of the night. There are approximately 7-10 families and perhaps a dozen children, ranging from about a year old to upper-elementary school students.

I found the process for becoming a volunteer alarmingly simple. I emailed the issue coordinator for Spanish language service opportunities at the CEC and participated in an hour-long orientation run by CLUES staff that consisted largely of an introduction to the program and tour of the school. There did not appear to be any screening process; no one asked if I spoke Spanish or had experience working with children or teaching in any capacity; certainly no one ran a background check or requested references or even a resume. In all of the paid jobs I have held, and even a majority of volunteer commitments, there has been at least a semblance of an application process. Here’s why I find this so troubling: either CLUES is too underfunded/understaffed to more rigorously screen their volunteers (not a great situation but somewhat understandable), CLUES never thought of it (more concerning), or it does not occur to Macalester to make sure it is providing community organizations with competent, rather than simply willing, labor. Regardless of the source of this lapse, it reflects a lack of commitment to ensuring that the quality of services provided to this underserved communities is appropriate and that there persists a discrepancy between access to high quality childcare among parents who are not participating in supplemental after-school education session and those who are, suggesting a double-deficit system. However, while I do not know what the children for whom we are responsible or any of the other students at the school would otherwise be doing from 5-8 every Tuesday, I think that they could do far worse with their out-of-school time than to be left in the care of enthusiastic, if not particularly skilled, college kids.

This model attempts to facilitate a more positive experience for children within their microsystems, mesosystems, and macrosystems, and does a particularly good job improving relationships within the mesosytem. The program does integrate many levels of Bronfenbrenner’s ecosytem into its approach. As far as addressing the idea of developmental assets, the kids in the program are encouraged to explore their various interests through activities that attempt to reflect multiple intelligence theories about learning, as well as providing diverse opportunities for the kids to engage in physical activity, creative expression, and other areas in which they could develop competence. It also connects them to college students, though if only in a brief and superficial capacity, this relationship seems beneficial to their perception of adults as caring and sympathetic people who are invested in them. While it is fun for the kids, I feel like I might be getting more education out of the experience than they are.

MNIC

Finding a placement place was not as hard for me, as I had an internship with Minnesota Internship Center already. However, my internship was mainly based on research but the placement requires interaction with teen students so I had to find a way of integrating that in to my internship. Now I have 2-3 hours of a week dedicated to tutoring and interacting with students.I do that on Tuesdays. The students are mainly African Americans

I remember my first day. I guess I would say I did more observation than participation, which I think was good. The class was too loud. Out of 12 students, the highest number of attendance in weeks, may be one was actually paying attention. In fact, at some point a argument between a guy and some girls got so serious that they had to be kicked out of the class and taken to another room. All these incidents got me thinking " if it is this hard for the teacher to help them, then how can I, a stranger who just showed up today, help these teens?" Being from a different culture, I thought I was at a disadvantage in understanding there backgrounds and why they behave the way they do. However, I thought if I put myself out there and go and ask if I could help them with anything, may be they will want to talk to me. " No. I do not need you help" was one of the replies I got from one of the kids. Then I decide there might be a lot of sitting around rather than helping.

The second day was much better than the first. I decided to say hi as I came in to the class and Tiffany, who I decide to sit next to, looked at me and did not say hi back. They were having a science class, which I would be a great help at. But none of them wanted help. For some of them it is truly because they just want to do it by themselves, which makes me kind of happy because out of the 40 assets we talked about in class they have got most of the internal assets like positive identity and commitment to learning. The most amazing this that day happened when I had like an hour left to go and I had just finished helping Shady with her creative writing. Tiffany came and said “ I want to apply for college but I need help with filling the forms for finical aid.” I was so excited that she asked me out of the two other tutors that were there with me. I do not mean to sound selfish but I am happy to see that my greeting that went unanswered is now being the foundation for this interaction. I helped her apply to Saint Paul Community College and finical aid offices. In the process we talked about so many things, that helped open my eyes to the kind of life there kids come from. I feel like now I have a much better understanding of there situation that day one. Of course, I still have to do more interactions to get a much better understanding but this was an eye opener that we do not really have to do something that is rocket science to help these kids.