Culminating Blog

During my hours mentoring for the Senior Capstone Project, I faced many difficulties that needed me to move outside of my comfort zone. Mentoring at an after school care program gave me the opportunity to work with kids, one of the many interests I was thinking about pursuing. The time I spent there was only for 25 hours, but it felt as though I had worked there longer. Many of the children also had a few issues or quirks of their own that I had to understand and overcome to be successful for my project, such as autism or superiority complexes that made the children hard to deal with. Along with my time with the students I assisted my mentor in tutoring the children with homework, watched them complete activities, and helped prepare other activities for upcoming days.

The first couple weeks mentoring I felt very out of place and awkward, it was hard for me to use my voice to tell a student not to do an action or have them complete a project without me telling them multiple times. I always observed my mentor and her way of handling difficult students like that, she had good control of her tone of voice and authority to get them to do what she demanded. I was able to slowly show more of myself to the children and have the connection with them to be able to tell them directions and correct their behavior when needed. I improved on this skill in the duration I mentored at the program. I was also able to create a sort of adult figure image to the children while still being a friend to them, something that I wanted to achieve.

When having to deal with difficult children, I had to put myself in their position and perspective to see what they were looking at, and why they were acting the way they were. I was able to handle a rising temper tantrum of an autistic student by telling them to calm down and breathe, and to not overreact to the situation at hand. I was successful at distracting their attention away from what was bothering them and diffusing a bad outcome. With another autistic student I wanted them to complete a coloring project for the program and a few other activities they needed to complete, and I had to negotiate with the student to come to an agreement of a couple pages of coloring a day so that they still had time to play. I did this to a few other students who needed to finish projects as well and I was in charge of that area when I was visiting to mentor. I learned to have patience for the children to get them to understand me and for me to understand them. Along with patience, I gained a skill at handling situations calmly without making the kids feel agitated or more irrational. 

Twelfth Meeting. May 5, 2014. Running total - 25 hours.

For the last couple hours of my mentoring, I walked into the classroom with the students and my mentor in time for the Mother's Day activity they had planned out. The students were to write on a piece of lined paper three things they loved about their mothers. When that was done they would glue the paper onto a colored cut out of a mother drawing. It was a cute activity they could take home afterwards. 

When that activity was about finished my mentor showed me the completed "All About Me" projects that were put into individual binders for the students to take home. Each one was unique and it was nice to see they were finally done, after the kids had colored the covers of their binders to take home. I ended my meeting by helping my mentor cut out the now lamenated math game cards I helped glue the other day into separate cards to hold and store into ziplock bags. 

Eleventh Meeting. May 3, 2014. Running total - 23 hours.

This day I arrived during the last ten minutes of the class's outside time and observed with my mentor their activities to make sure they were playing safely. We all walked into the classroom and that day there was no homework session because they had done it earlier in the day. I was given a task to cut and glue multiplication problems over addition ones for a math game the program was making for the kids. I was accompanied by an autistic student who usually didn't like new staff/volunteers, and he sat beside me as I was working on the game. He would draw tulips and chatter nonstop about them to me, which I was enthusiastically responding to him on it too. A couple times he would grab my tape/glue and mess with it, resulting in me having to take it away and telling him not to do it.

I was given another project to cut out silhouette outlines of animals for an activity the program was planning and the same student was still sitting beside me, this time cutting out his self-drawn "pine cones" which looked just like suns and placing them into a basket. A one point another student made a comment about the autistic student's pine cones, resulting in a temper tantrum. My mentor had to calm him down and console him on his drawings. I had to make an intervention to the student because it was time to clean up, and the tantrum was starting up again. I told the student to calm down and breathe to stop whining and being angry. My mentor praised me for that action.  

Tenth Meeting. May 2, 2014. Running total - 20 hours.

For this day I arrived during the time the class was walking back to the after school program room. I spent the day helping students with their homework assignments. Most students had trouble with math and some self-answer worded questions, which was normal. I walked around the classroom making sure each student wasn't having difficulty with their work and they were staying on track.

I was also given the task by my mentor to do some paperwork for some of the students' projects for the upcoming end of the year. It wasn't difficult, but I did the task I was given as a volunteer staff and student. Not much different happened on this mentoring day. 

Ninth Meeting. April 16, 2014. Running total - 18 hours

I arrived during the last 10-15 minutes of outside time for the after school program, and my mentor told me of an interesting natural consequence event that occurred before I came to visit. 

One of the students that had a issue of wanting to boss everyone else around and wanting to the best had the rest of the students lined up in an area in the playground to decide what to play. She had them vote for a game, which was tag. After they had played that game the students were al lined up back in the same place to vote for another game, but that time no one wanted to play the games their "leader" wanted to play. They revolted and each went off to play the games they wanted to play, leaving the one student to sulk alone for a while since her power was overthrown. 

Inside the classroom I did the same routine of helping students who needed help with their homework, usually with math or spelling/English homework. After the homework period, the students had to continue working or finishing up their last part of the "All About Me" booklets with the All About My Country part. I assisted students who needed to write down what they'd do as president, and tell them to color and cut out the small booklet talking about Washington D.C.. I would staple and glue the Washington D.C. booklets to a piece of paper that would later be shown to them or given to them to take home. I also had to correct a student's action of putting away scissors as they were opening and closing the utensil while walking. 

Eighth Meeting. April 14, 2014. Running total - 16 hours.

For today, I came at the time when the class was ready to start on their homework period. I was at one of the tables for the whole working period, helping with a kindergartner with their simple assignment while trying to teach another student how to complete assignments for their "All About Me" booklet. They were able to complete most of it, to my mentor's delight. The kindergartner I was still assisting had trouble with identifying objects that started with a certain letter, and a simple word search that only consisted of finding a single word multiple times. I was a little bit frustrated at the student for not understanding everything I was telling them and all the hints I was giving to help them finish the assignment. 

After the homework period, the art activity for the day was a small packet part of the "All About Me" booklet. It was about their country's capital, Washington D. C. and consisted of the students coloring the U. S. seal and writing ideas on what they would do if they were president. Many of the kids had wild ideas, and a few had really intelligent ideas about what they'd do with their power. One of the crazier ideas was to have ice cream sundaes on Sundays, and a well thought out idea was to limit air pollution and ban whatever added to it if it went over the quota. I walked around the room to help students who needed it and told a few of them to focus on their own work when they started to talk across the room and get out of their seats. 

When the students began to finish a couple pages of the packet and began turning it in to my mentor, I was given the task of removing staples off of the bulletin board borders on the wall and take off the butcher paper that used to hold previous art projects. 

Seventh Meeting. April 11, 2014. Running total - 14 hours

For this mentoring day, things were slightly different. I arrived just as the class finished their play time outside, and helped my mentor and her staff member guide the class to my mentor's car, where I assisted her in taking out a lot of boxes to give to the students to carry back to the classroom. The after school program was preparing to move to a different classroom at the end of the year, and I was in time to help pack some of the items in the boxes before the move. After I grabbed and handed out a box to each student we all headed back to the classroom. A few mishaps and distractions, but finally making it back to the classroom without much of a struggle. 

My mentor had the students place the boxes at a single table for me and her staff member to help tape back together and find the correct box covers that go to each box. She allowed the class to play freely as long as they didn't bother our process of putting together complete boxes. When we had found the right life to the right box, it was time to pack them with items from the classroom's closest. I assisted her staff member in packing and taping the boxes closed; I also used the time to get some of the students to finish pages of their "All About Me" booklets. 

Fifth & Sixth Meeting. April 8 and 9, 2014. Running total - 12 hours

Both of these days were very similar in that I arrived just as the after school class was finish their outside time at the playground. I headed inside with them and helped out the students who needed assistance with their homework. Again I mostly aided younger students who just wanted moral support and understood the content of their work. Many of the other students didn't need help or was assisted by my mentor as her staff member.

Instead of an art project, the class was mainly focused on finishing their "All About Me" booklets during the two days. I called over some students to finish some pages of their booklet while everyone else played during the free period and waited for their parents to pick them up. During those two mentoring days I learned how to have a little more control over how to handle the students, such as telling them to sit down in their seats properly or to focus on their own work in front of them. I was still not as observant or commanding as my mentor. 

Fourth Meeting - April 7, 2014. Running total: 8 hours.

For the fourth meeting with my mentor, I arrived during their last 10 minutes of play time outside on the playground. It was an extremely hot day and most of the kids didn't want to move around, and sat at picnic benches until it was time to go. One of the students constantly complained about feeling sick, which my mentor dismissed as nothing and only an act for attention. I observed this and the time a few other students decided to drink water when it was time to go inside. They could have waited until they were back inside the after school care classroom to drink water, but chose to make everyone else wait for them. It started with one student, and then added up to two others who were influenced by that one student's action. 

Back inside the classroom, the students all took out their homework for the working period of the program. I only helped out two students who needed assistance, mostly with a student who was likely in kindergarten and needed help with simple addition, subtraction, and identification of words that started with the letter "W". The student seemed as though they had an understanding of the homework, but just wanted an adult figure by them for support. 

There was no scheduled project for that day, because my mentor decided it would be a work day to try and get students to finish their "All About Me" projects. I was able to get a good amount of students to finish coloring and cut out pieces of a project to put together as a flip booklet that displayed themselves and the place they lived in. After having students finish some of their projects, I cleaned up and took my leave. 

Third Meeting - April 1, 2014. Running total: 6 hours.

For the third meeting with my mentor I arrived just in time for the after school group to start on their art activity, which was a watercolor project. Each student had to paint within the lines of overlapping circles and not paint adjacent spaces with the same color. I figured it was to promote color recognition and placement. I assisted my mentor in handing out the activity paper and paint brushes. 

During the activity, my mentor gave me a small ongoing project to attend to on my own or when I had the time to do so. I was to help students who were behind in their "All About Me" booklets from the previous blog finish their pages whenever they had the free time to complete them. I was able to get two students to complete a couple of pages for themselves after they finished the watercolor activity and started on free time. That was the main part of my meeting for the day. This would help me to communicate and learn to get the students to comply with what I wanted them to do as a project and mission for myself. 

I also observed whenever a student was misbehaving, that my mentor and her staff member had complete authority over the students to get him or her to stop acting up just by requesting them nicely or to tell them out loud as a command of discipline. It was interesting to see that they usually had a stricter tone whenever they had to discipline verbally, and I had wondered if my voice was authoritative enough to calm students down if they started to act up. 

I ended my mentoring time by playing card and board games with the students that asked me to play with them. A good way to connect with them to get a better sense of how to care for them and for them to try and respect me as an older figure. A lot of times the students had trouble deciding what to play or who would have the first turn, and they would decide using rock, paper, scissors or another method they chose by their own accord. Sometimes it wouldn't work out and I'd have to intervene to settle disputes, or my mentor or her assistant would help me calm the children down. I still have to learn in my next visits. 

Second Meeting - March 31, 2014. Running total: 4 hours.

The second meeting with my mentor was for another two hours on a rainy day. I arrived during the period the students do their homework and immediately went on to assisting any kids in need of help. I helped two 3rd grade students with math assignments involving long division, and a surprisingly new method of solving the problems that the school's system was teaching. 

Next on the agenda was an art project that would come together to form a booklet all about each student's life. From "All About Me" to "On the Day I Was Born" the students color and write about different categories of their life growing up in South San Francisco. Today's page of the booklet was a coloring page about their country, the United States. They had to color a bald eagle wearing a top hat that was carrying an American Flag. 

After the activity, it was free time for the students to enjoy and play games among themselves. I was accompanied by a student who invited to play a card game with him, which I would always defeat him in accidentally. I would be surrounded by a few other kids who would be playing on their own accord and another beside me working on a math workbook they didn't seem to understand the concept of at their grade level. I left and ended my mentoring place after two hours, near the time where most of the students had taken their leave with their parents. 

First Mentor Meeting - March 3, 2014. Running total: 2 hours.

The first meeting with my mentor lasted for two hours, starting from 3:30PM to 5:30PM. When I arrived at the after school program, the students were outside at the playground lining up to walk inside. They were a lot smaller than what I imagined, and my my mentor greeted me as we all walked to the portable which was convienently located within the elementary school. I received a name tag (sticker) and introduced myself to the class, where they were all either very friendly or shy.

 

I assisted the students with their homework when the time to do homework came up through the process of a countdown and a studying background song, which was pretty effective since the students acted accordingly to the music and my mentor. Many of the children had trouble with counting or math problems, but were able to do it when I told them to use their fingers to count or try it out on their own first and looking for my approval for the correct answer.

 

My mentor pointed out an isolated student to me during my drop-by, who was selectively muted to her peers and very talkative to her parents. I noticed she followed or stared at people or who she looked up to, one of which was my mentor. Hopefully during my next visits I could get her to open up more to other people, the same goal my mentor has.

 

After the homework period ended, each student listened for the cue of the music to clean up and prepare for the daily activity of the day, today it was an craft project using label stickers of rectangular and circular shapes as different objects like tables and desks in each student's classroom. This was an activity to also teach the children about spacial recognition and adjust sizes to fit each sticker object into their classroom, which was a sheet of graphing paper. Before the project my mentor explained the activity in a simple manner for the children to understand, stopping any questions from the kids to be answered until after the explanation was finished. All the students had access to writing utensils and scissors to better aid them in recreating their classrooms. Once the projects were complete all the students helped to clean up their tables and put the utensils away for their own individual free time.

 

It was a really cute first visit, all of the kids had their little quirks and I could see that a few students would be easier to handle than others. After the musical I'll definitely have more time to do my mentoring. (^__^)