KIDDIE POLLOCKThe image in this post was the work of one of my colleague's kids from a recent Lenovo Kidz@Work day. (Yes, ALL parents survived thank you, and no conference calls were hurt during the event)
It was a terrific day by all accounts. It was especially amusing to see kids come to their parents desks during break - and if their parents were not there the kids would put on their parent's headsets and pretend to be doing conference calls. Although one little girl did say she didn't want to be like her mum when she grew up because "who wants to be on calls all the time?"
The kids at the Family Service Centre are on holiday break. Last Saturday was the last one for the year, so we had a chocolate cake party. Charles supplied the cake. Before the cake, there was still work to be done.
The two "L" brothers were running around, wouldn't sit still, and one of the other volunteers had them this time. I had a table with five girls aged 7-11, and a teeange volunteer from the uni helping me out. (I love her - she's a brilliant, cool, young woman and she'll do great things when she graduates). We were doing the Human Body - reading about what makes up blood, how long it takes for blood to circulate, sticking femurs, biceps, triceps onto this gigantic sticker book. One of the girls got bored and said she couldn't read without her glasses and left. The others were really engaged. And smart. And I think it took the "L" brothers, who were in another room, a long time to get UNbored.
Their younger sister, who's 7, was in my group, and I have to admit I had REALLY low expectations of her - having worked with her brothers. Dumb prejudice. She totally held her own - she's a really smart kid. So were the other girls who stuck around. So I said to the social worker maybe I should just focus on this group of girls from now. They're interested and they're smart. And I'll know my time's well used.
And she said, in a nice way "well...that's the thing about the education system here. Everyone wants to focus on the smart ones - and who's going to help those who are not?"
Sigh - food for thought. Should I expend my energy chasing the kids around the room who want to be playing with their yo-yo's and bothering the other kids? Or focus on those who are interested in learning something and find it fun? Jury's still out for me.
3 comments:
My brother John is a high school English teacher. He sides with investing more resources in under-achieving kids. They require more work and creativity from teachers. The smart kids can learn from anybody, or even by themselves.
u know, sometimes the bored ones may actually be the really intelligent ones. they're just bored for whatever reason. i'm for the pied piper approach - we get our strategy right and beat that path and as long as there's a level of consistency mixed with passion and conviction, i do feel that more kids will come on the bandwagon with us.
anyway, enough of me. back to you!
Bob, good point on smart kids learning from anyone. Kjj, i'm waiting for the "L" gang and "Mr Yo Yo" to get on board. I think they need more attention as well - AND we also need more male volunteers. The boys responded really really well to Eric when he used to come volunteer.
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