First day with the "learners"

     I put learners in quotations because nobody here calls them students.  Today was the first day we were able to facilitate a class.  In my class we started with the 11 girls from grade 8 (ages 13-15) because Grant takes the boys out while we work with them by themselves.  Mr. Williams (their teacher) started introducing the girls to us and he stopped at this one girl and told us she was evil.  He called her out and said she had some kind of evil inside her or something ridiculous like that which really surprised me.  I thought it was extremely inappropriate for a grown man to say that to a 13 year old girl, but I guess him and I see things differently.  We started with the girls in stations.  One station Maureen brought her laptop and listened to love songs with the girls and they talked about the different kinds of love.  Vanessa did another station where they wrote what they loved on a heart and stuck it on the wall.  When they got to my station they wrote what they loved about themselves on hearts and took them home with them.  In the middle of the class the girl who the teacher called evil busted out in tears, ran outside, and locked herself in the bathroom.  She was in Vanessa's group at the time so she ran after her and I took over her group.  While the little girl was running away I noticed she had either a fake leg or a leg she is unable to use which made me feel really bad for her.  Apparently what Mr. Williams said to her really hurt her feelings.  Before Vanessa came back and told me why she was crying the Principle walked in.  He actually works individually with these girls, so I asked him if anything was wrong today.  He said that she has a lot of home issues and thought that may have something to do with it.  When Vanessa came back and told me what happened I was so mad at Mr. Williams.  He didn't do ANYTHING while we were in the class except sit in the back of the classroom and smoke.  Yes, he smokes in class which is against rules, but they are giving him a second chance.  I am not super thrilled with him right now, but oh well.  After stations we brought the girls together and asked them what they wanted to do with us to get an idea of what direction we were gonna go in for the future lessons.  We still had about 5 minutes left after we finished discussing ideas, so the girls taught us one of their games that they play.  It was really funny, but I am not going to try to explain it on here.  By the time we finished the game it was time for play time and we were headed outside.  Some of the girls from Tyler's class ran up and was calling for me so they could see who his wife was.  It was really cute.

     After play time the boys joined us in the class, so we then had about 23 people in the class.  The boys are VERY disruptive.  It is very clear to me that they aren't used to the kind of structure that I am used to seeing in classrooms in the USA.  I ended up stepping in (Mr. Williams continued to sit in the back and do nothing but smoke) and doing the whole, "If you hear me clap once...If you hear me clap twice..." thing which the boys really responded to.  In actuality they turned it into a song by the end of class.  With the boys we just played some get to know you games and some silly games.  The boys and girls here want to solve problems physically and it's really shocking.  It got to a point that I had to tell them that if they started fighting we would go back inside and sit at the desks and do boring stuff.  After that class we went back to the college kids' classroom and discussed in our groups how everything went.  We also had a bit of time to plan some more activities for future lessons.  Grant's mom made really good food again. 



So this is herb stuffed chicken, potato salad, grilled vegies, carrot and pineapple salad and whole wheat bread.

     Tyler is going to tell about his day!  Today for the first day we had a get to know you activity and then we went outside and played a tag game. After their recess we came back and for the last 45 minutes we explained what Valentines Day is and then they all made two cards; one of the cards was for their mom or grandma and the other was for somebody in the class. It was good getting to know them.
     I can't believe he only wrote that much, but I guess I am just glad he will write it.  Other than class we have gone to the Spar and gotten some goodies for Valentines Day.  Namely a freakin amazing Mousse Cake!!


I obviously couldn't wait till' tomorrow!

     Well, I think this blog is PLENTY long.  We aren't doing anything else for the rest of the day except layin around enjoying each others company. =]