Friday, May 27
As you read, we had quite the experience yesterday. 5 hours of the same subject with the same kids was too much, but it was necessary, given that they missed school on Wednesday. Turns out, many of them missed school today as well. They have a mandatory vaccination today, at 1PM, and though our class is over at noon, the administration said that if it was a hardship for the parents to bring their children to school for only a morning session, that the students could miss the whole day. In Emma and my class, that was about half the class. In Skylar and Colleen’s class, they were only missing three. This turned out to be a blessing and a curse. I think some of the students in our class that knew they’d miss today shut down yesterday afternoon after they were told that we were going to start the project, then finish today. Some of them nobly tried to get something done, but one boy in our class shut down his computer and put his head on the desk and simply gave up. There was no convincing him that he should try to do the work. Those that did try, got something out of the experience, but it was far from ideal. I’m not sure if there is a lesson for us here. Would we have changed the lesson if we knew the entire class would miss the day? Probably. But we didn’t know until yesterday that we’d be losing so many students today. We simply couldn’t have planned for this. So, we make the most of the situation and move on. I will say, these CSG girls are really good about being adaptable and flexible. You heard the frustration, but they persevered. Truly admirable! But, the really exciting thing is who did show up today. We heard many stories about kids who were planning to stay home, but came to our class JUST to work on their projects, and they knew that today was our last day here. Two kids came in from the OTHER group… the group we had for the first three days. They had intended to stay home, but came in just to work more with Scratch. One girl said her mom couldn’t bring her to school – that it would be too hard. But when she showed up, she had convinced her sister to come get her at noon. So many stories of kids coming in especially because we were there. If that doesn’t make you feel good, I just don’t know what could. I’ve been mulling over a theory about highs and lows with a class. When we taught in St. John for 9 days in a row, there was always a serious dip in morale. I would tell the students ahead of time that about midway through the trip, they’d wish they were home. That they’d be saying “I can’t make it through another day, let alone make it through the whole week.” Sure enough, every year, the same thing happened. Usually it happened about midway through the trip after the high of the first days and before the high of knowing that there were only a few days left. With fewer days to teach, I was worried that we wouldn’t be here long enough to get back up out of the hole. But now I’m wondering if we simply compressed the cycle. There was definitely a dip morale in each of our mini, three-day cycles. As I debriefed with Shea, we both noted that there is a similar dip during a normal school year. Usually in late January/early February. I always thought the dip was because of the winter weather. But now I’m wondering if there needs to be a dip simply because it’s human nature. I’m just glad that we came back out the other side. As I wrote earlier, I’m already laying the groundwork for next year’s trip. I am excited to learn that we are heartily being welcomed back. Because of the press we received in the newspaper, our partner at the Ministry of Commerce and Trade has received multiple requests for us to come to their schools as well. Not only that, St. Albans has enthusiastically invited us back. The two gentlemen from the Ministry of Education were already planning for us to come back, AND are planning summer camps and other uses for the laptops throughout next year. Shea has even enthusiastically said “yes” to a round two! All of the adults who worked with us were excited about the possibilities, both local and national. I feel so honored to be at the right place at the right time with the right ideas to share. I’m excited about the potential. This evening we had a celebratory dinner after a few sunset beach photos. We each talked about our favorite thing, our biggest surprise, our biggest challenge, etc. It was so nice to be able to speak about this experience with these lovely young women. They are amazing. Tomorrow we fly home. It will be a VERY early morning (4AM) and a VERY long layover in Miami (8 hours), but we will have plenty of time to think about this great experience. (And we’ll have plenty of time for those TSA lines in Miami!!) If you are interested in seeing some of the student’s projects, please visit the Scratch studio. You don’t need to download anything. But I warn you, some of the quizzes are really hard! I now know a whole lot of Barbados facts that I didn’t know a week ago! https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/2081396/ Signing off until next August…
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Trip BlogEvery day we will have two students and one teacher blog. Emma, the senior, will blog daily, the two juniors and the two teachers will alternate. Please check back often! |