Tuesday, November 07, 2006
you got served
Community service was on my mind for a while - I just didn't act on it until fairly recently.
Conversation at McDonald's with M after a Saturday morning reading exercise:
Volunteers (V): So, M, what do you like to do at the home? *(the kids live in a community home)
M: I don't know. I just got out of the hospital. I'm new here.
V: Oh... so, what do you like to do?
M: I like taking things apart (grins).
V: Like what?
M: Dunno. TV's. Computers. My Dad's real good. He's a motor engineer.
V: Very cool. Is that what you want to do when you grow up?
M: Yeah. I'm going to have my Dad teach me, as soon as I can get out of here.
The kids at the home live separately from their parents for one reason or another. Perhaps their family couldn't support them. Perhaps they have special mental or physical conditions. Perhaps they were abused. The kid I was paired up with, T, a small, wiry, and witty boy. We finished up the work and he started reading Lemonny Snicket out loud (to me, maybe?). He was absorbed in reading more than socializing.
On the other spectrum, there is a tutoring program at a college-prepatory elementary school in Lawndale. I was tutoring an energetic 5th grader with ADD and a despondent 6th grade girl. These kids are quite the charmers but they probably have no clue why they need to study. They need to complete all of their homework (or else it's detention at lunch or after school) - but there's no reward for getting right answers. The girl just zoomed through her math homework - not really understanding why her fraction answers had ginormous denominators. Their motivation was to not get a detention the next day.
It may take a while to find a group I'm comfortable with (and I have to leave in a couple months), but I'm enjoying interacting with the community again.
Conversation at McDonald's with M after a Saturday morning reading exercise:
Volunteers (V): So, M, what do you like to do at the home? *(the kids live in a community home)
M: I don't know. I just got out of the hospital. I'm new here.
V: Oh... so, what do you like to do?
M: I like taking things apart (grins).
V: Like what?
M: Dunno. TV's. Computers. My Dad's real good. He's a motor engineer.
V: Very cool. Is that what you want to do when you grow up?
M: Yeah. I'm going to have my Dad teach me, as soon as I can get out of here.
The kids at the home live separately from their parents for one reason or another. Perhaps their family couldn't support them. Perhaps they have special mental or physical conditions. Perhaps they were abused. The kid I was paired up with, T, a small, wiry, and witty boy. We finished up the work and he started reading Lemonny Snicket out loud (to me, maybe?). He was absorbed in reading more than socializing.
On the other spectrum, there is a tutoring program at a college-prepatory elementary school in Lawndale. I was tutoring an energetic 5th grader with ADD and a despondent 6th grade girl. These kids are quite the charmers but they probably have no clue why they need to study. They need to complete all of their homework (or else it's detention at lunch or after school) - but there's no reward for getting right answers. The girl just zoomed through her math homework - not really understanding why her fraction answers had ginormous denominators. Their motivation was to not get a detention the next day.
It may take a while to find a group I'm comfortable with (and I have to leave in a couple months), but I'm enjoying interacting with the community again.
// posted by sakit @ 7:48 PM 
