During my time with Summer P.A.L.S., the playground rotation became the workshop for the second graders. Digging holes was a favorite pass time for some of the 2nd graders, some of them used bottle caps, broken plastic utensils, and their hands; watching that I thought to myself why don’t I buy them some shovels. After a few days, I purchased three spoons from the local grocery store, but because I did not consider other kids getting involved in the activity, disputes over who will use the spoons first became an issue. To solve this problem, I purchased three more spoons to accommodate the growing number of kids getting involved in this activity. One day, I saw one of the kids pour water on top of this rocky dirt surface so he could dig through the hard surface, I looked at that and said to myself how did this child think of such an ingenious idea?! I think the hard rocky dirt surface forced the kids to reconsider there approach, but honestly, I think the kids just tried something, and it worked and continued to dig using this approach, all I did was encourage it. As the holes became deeper and deeper, the kids had begun to find little pieces of plastic, glass, nails and other interesting items under the earth surface this spark some ideas of my own that I wanted to try. At the end of the school day, I went shopping for some beads and a few tools which would let out the dirt but would leave all of the heavy material behind to find “treasures” I could not wait to see the kids dig up the jewels and see their reaction. The next morning was the day, the day I get to see the faces of the children while digging up their surprise from the dirt; also the children got to use a new tool which aided in finding amazing surprises later. Before I attended to my group in the morning, I went to the playground to hide the beads I bought from the store in the holes the kids dug up the previous day. I could not wait to get to this rotation thinking to myself “man, I can’t wait to see there faces! After my lunch break, it was time for the playground rotation, The kids would ask me ‘Mr, do you have the shovels’ I was eager to give them the tools, I wanted them to find the beads badly to see what would come out of it, so I ran to the cafeteria, grabbed the tools and ran back to the playground as fast as I could and of course, I did not hesitate to relinquish the shovels to the little explorers soon after. Once the kids started digging, they immediately found the beads I heed under the ground, I quickly grabbed a container and told them to hold the treasures inside the bowl so one day all the children could make fancy necklaces and bracelets. I added another feature to the activity I call the ”image” or the character all I needed was a straw-hat to put on their heads, after that I would tell the children “now you guys look like real explorers” while holding their magnifying glasses and shovels at the same time; to me the child looked like real archaeologist, searching under the earth to uncover some unknown period in history which needed to in a museum.
I also set up a “challenge” the challenge was to untie a knot without becoming irritated I timed this challenge, so the children knew if he/she became angry, I would keep record of the time, so if the child tried again he or she would try to beat there record, no prizes were involved in the challenge, but acknowledging the fact that it became harder for irritation to occur. I would know when the child became irritated when he or she would say “this is hard” if it is hot usually the kids would move out of the sun to find shade sense the heat of the sun generates irritation much quicker also, I would not recommend talking to the child under this condition because it produces irritation much faster as well; I worked for a rental car company, the same thing happens if someone is trying to guide 4 children and walk their luggage to the rental company all in the heat of Maui while your trying to convey information to a person under intense stress usually frustration occurs very rapidly or it becomes worse and sometimes you get the sharp end of the stick.
After school program at Lihikai Elementary(A Plus Program)
I had set up a workshop inside of the school cafeteria, at first, the studio started as a place where children could create arts and crafts I taught the kids recycling so kids wouldn’t merely throw the scraps in the garbage, that way all waste products are recycled and used the next day. If the kids participated in the workshops, it would reduce the number of kids playing on the playground, reducing crowding pressures the counselor had to deal with daily. The workshop evolved from mere arts and crafts to science projects, recycling, arts and crafts, conflict resolution and inquiry; I would buy crude scientific experiment from the store, I would bring microscopes, broken laptops, electronic equipment, drones, tablets, etc. kids would learn how to do necessary repairs on broken laptops, tablets were used to see if the kids would help each other solve “brain games” problems, while on these games, I watched as groups of children would sing in harmony with each other to address particular questions on the brain games I was fascinated with that. When I brought a microscope in, one of the kids was so amazed by the item he started to take it apart, the child also told me he had never seen a microscope before; I was shocked! I grew up with the pieces of technology in my science classroom, so what was going on here? I brought in a notebook, so the kids could write what they’ve learned from the workshop. I would look inside the book to read their adventures, but I found something troubling, I could not understand the writing because of the spelling errors mixed with the sloppy handwriting made it very difficult to take in their experiences, so I had to come up with something else. One day, I brought in a drone, I did not know how to operate the drone, so I told the kids to see if they can get it to function and fly. I sent out a group of about four outside, I wanted to know if the children could work on getting the drone in operation together After about fifteen minutes, one of the kids came rushing in the cafeteria to tell me his group workout a way to operate the drone and fly it; it was obvious the boy was excited out of his mind. I took my phone out, and I asked them, “how did you get the drone to function? While I was holding the phone in my hand to record their words and their excitement on video. After the video recording, the children asked me to watch the film I just registered, and I opened my phone allowing the children to watch the video, I was as excited as the children I knew I was on to something here most of all, I did not need a notebook to describe their experiences. I found it interesting that the kids could observe there experience at any point in time on a video camera or phone, if the child had forgotten how to operate the drone, the child could always go back to that video to re-learn how to drive the drone, these videos were stored on the phone for future use as a tool to help demonstrate cooperation during projects in an educational setting. Just imagine if you had classroom of kids doing a video project giving different examples of collaboration between students to accomplish a goal and have the student post it on a school youtube channel for all to see, maybe other children around the world would do the same, perhaps even a collaboration with other students in other states or probably other countries as well.
I brought in a V.R. headset, and I had one phone that synced with the V.R. headset very well, plenty of kids wanted a shot at the V.R. headset, but I only had one which caused some disputes over who will use the headset first. I came up with a crude Idea, I told the kids ‘once you count 30 seconds the next person in line would use the headset’ obviously it did not work well, so over time, the kids came up with there own plan by paying attention to the sound the game generated when the game is over; the kids learned then when the game was over, so the child using the headset would be forced to give the device to the other participates; sometimes the child forced to give up the unit simply moved to other areas of the workshop that seemed more appealing, if he/she passed around the V.R. headset enough times, thus reducing the number of kids using the headset, thus reducing conflict. In this workshop, the most important thing was having many groups available in the studio so kids could rotate around the seminar until they could find something or many things that interested him/her, to mitigate boredom. I also would stimulate the urge to know by bringing a notepad to school, on this pad I would write down questions the kids asked me, I would bring the note pad home and answer the questions as best I could with books or with the aid of the computers(google) the next day, I would answer the questions they asked the previous day; I would do this every single day. The kids always asked me about “science day” or “I have another question Mr” there need to understand the world around them, solve problems and to ask questions about the natural world became part of the after school program during my stay but only for a short period of time due to changes in leadership or site coordinators.
I would love to collaborate with other passionate minds to develop the same kind of ideas at Kalama intermediate. Most of the students at Kalama conduct themselves well under the type of structure at the school. It seems to me, only a select few are having difficulties following through with class assignments and staying in particular classes. An attempt to motivate a specific group of kids was tried in the past using sports and clubs but to no avail. During my time at Kalama, I would monitor the children on the playground, making sure the children did not hurt themselves or others. I went from playing sports to asking questions such as “why won’t you guys go to class?” “Why is class boring?” “What will make your lessons more attractive?” I gave general lectures about a wide variety of subjects to children while watching students play soccer, kickball, and volleyball on the playground. You’ll be surprised what these middle schoolers want to know if you ask them questions every day such as “do you guys have any questions about anything in particular?” or “what do guys want to talk about today?” These kids are ready to understand how things work in the world; reinforcing inquiry, relationship building, and enabling the children to have a voice is the key to there success, not just commanding students to have a seat, stay in class, and do your work; imagine if you’re the student, how long can you deal with “sit down, do your classwork, where’s your homework over and over before you snap? Thank about it.
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