Green shoots of interest?

I emailed several of my friends to get help at the Family Service Centre while the regular student volunteers were away for exams. I got a terrific response. A couple of them will be staying on to volunteer every other week. Yay! And thank you!

We also had a group from a JC come in to speak about and demo traditional games like chaptek, sepak takraw, and gasing (a spinny, top-like thing like playing with a yo-yo on the ground.) The kids weren't so keen on the powerpoint lecture - but they were more than happy to play the games out on the void deck.

The routine for the past three weeks has been like this: we start with some kind of word game followed by reading - all on the same subject matter. Last week it was The Pharaohs - from a really cool, colourful, history/ activity book aimed at kids. Then the kids write 5-10 sentences about something related to the subject. A couple of the kids wrote about being soldiers or wanting to be soldiers. One of the kids made himself a Pharaoh: King Nashruddin anyone? Ambition is always good.

So, at the end of the session, I asked the kids what they wanted to read about next. "Soccer" was the overwhelming winner. Medieval history didn't quite make it. Wonder why.

Cheryl, one of two social workers there, told me later that one of the boys, who'd never shown interest in books before, took a book on soccer from the bookshelf and asked if he could borrow it to read over the week. She was surprised - and happy.

Last Saturday, the younger kids (ages 6-8) who gave a mini-performance and a bunch of the older (9-12) ones watched. There were rhymes, some singing - one of the songs was Old MacDonald- where the kids would spell out the animal. At one point in the performance, the kids were singing "and on his farm he had a d-u-c-k". And the 9-year-old sitting next to me turns to me and says "Teacher, I know F- *-*-*"

An hour later, as the kids are getting ready to go home, I turn around to see one of older boys, WJ, doing an imitation of a lion tamer, holding out a chair and glaring at someone. Only he wasn't pretending or fooling around. There'd been some sort of argument and on of the volunteers was holding on to him while another volunteer was restraining another boy.

In another room, another boy, S, was staying back doing homework having asked a volunteer for help with geometry, and out in the main area, an 8-year-old was doing the same with English. A contrast.

I wonder about what help they get at home (or not). I wonder what it would take to get boys like WJ interested - and have WJ focus and engaged instead of disruptive. A male volunteer who'll give him some one-on-one time on a subject matter he enjoys? A long term mentor? I'm still thinking. Would love to hear your ideas.