5D Field Note 4
Corey Smith
Psychology 211
March 8th, 2007
Angel
Activities - Distributed writing, coloring
General Site Description
After signing in we arrived on site. There was mention of doing distributed writing instead of game room time. We went outside to meet up with the kids. It was snack time as usual. I tried to talk with Saul but he ignored me and then got up from the table and left. He’d wanted to be my buddy before. I may have hurt his feelings.
Narrative
It was time to head into the cafeteria. I’d not buddied up with anyone at that point so I sat down at a table with a lot of kids. Turns out I sat down next to a boy named Angel and I worked with him pretty much for the rest of the time there. He said he’d done all his homework and wanted to read or color. I said we were going to try something else. I awkwardly tried to explain what we were going to do. I struggled to think of a way I could spin it as fun without feeling like I was lying. Fortunately Sally and Jon were nearby armed with ingenious comments that I never would have thought to say. It was tough getting Angel to read the story, but getting him to continue it was the hardest part. He kept asking me what to write and his typical response to most of my prompts was “I don’t know.” After continuing the story for a bit it took a wild turn into a dark forest, leaving behind the bomb on Maple Street. The story progressed very similarly to Hansel and Gretel. At this point he was writing with very little prompting and the story just flowed out on its own. But when he was done, he was done. The story no longer bore any relation to the original title or implied plot. I tried to help him make some of the questions but wasn’t sure how to start getting him to think about it. Jon came up with a really simple but good prompt to get him thinking about it. We got through writing the questions but Angel never really came up with his own tricky distracter which was part of the point of the exercise. It sounds like we’ll be doing it again so next time he may have a better idea of what this activity is all about and we can work from there.
I went out to get the snacks which were promised as a special treat for the kids. Sounds like positive reinforcement to me, although they aren’t always going to get snacks. We haven’t discussed schedules of reinforcement in class yet. Angel decided he’d help me pass out snacks and once everyone else had theirs he got his. I thought that was really nice of him and I thanked him. We sat back down at the table we’d been working at and drew for the remaining time. Angel drew a castle that had juice spilled on it. He then drew my name on a piece of paper in big colorful letters. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my name written in good hand writing. Angel took off and we had our usual debriefing. We discussed the distributive writing activity.
Reflection
The distributive writing was very awkward to start. Angel didn’t think it sounded fun at first and I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t have thought that was play either. Still, once he started getting into his own portion of the story he just wrote away and seemed to have a good time with it. I wasn’t sure what to think about him taking the idea from Hansel and Gretel. Should I suggest he try to get his creative juices flowing and come up with something more his own? That sure would make me a big hypocrite though since I did something similar in 2nd grade. I guess I’d seen this short independent film called “The Red Balloon” that was made in the 50’s. It had no dialog and was about a half hour long. It was about a boy and this red balloon that had a personality of its own. I opted not to be too critical of Angel (something I need to do more often in general) and encourage him to let the story flow the way he wanted. The first part of the story was about a bomb on Maple Street and it was very difficult to get Angel to think of anything that would tie into to the original. It was far easier for him once his writing was fueled and directed by his own creative freedom.
Children seem to see things in much more black and white ways. This is in stark contrast with my resistance in seeing anything as an absolute. There just isn’t time to explain why something is a gray area and there are lots of other things to consider, but generally this is pretty black or that is pretty white. At this point it’s best to just drop them as axioms and add the exceptions to their model of the world gradually. I find it really difficult though because I have an unreasonable compulsion to not misrepresent anything, ever. It also ties in to a personal moral philosophy in regards to lying. Without getting in to it too much, I’m going to have to get used to what I call lying and dishonesty if I’m going to work well with the kids. I don’t think most people would see it that way, but we likely have different views on “white lies” and other justified dishonest acts.
Psychology 211
March 8th, 2007
Angel
Activities - Distributed writing, coloring
General Site Description
After signing in we arrived on site. There was mention of doing distributed writing instead of game room time. We went outside to meet up with the kids. It was snack time as usual. I tried to talk with Saul but he ignored me and then got up from the table and left. He’d wanted to be my buddy before. I may have hurt his feelings.
Narrative
It was time to head into the cafeteria. I’d not buddied up with anyone at that point so I sat down at a table with a lot of kids. Turns out I sat down next to a boy named Angel and I worked with him pretty much for the rest of the time there. He said he’d done all his homework and wanted to read or color. I said we were going to try something else. I awkwardly tried to explain what we were going to do. I struggled to think of a way I could spin it as fun without feeling like I was lying. Fortunately Sally and Jon were nearby armed with ingenious comments that I never would have thought to say. It was tough getting Angel to read the story, but getting him to continue it was the hardest part. He kept asking me what to write and his typical response to most of my prompts was “I don’t know.” After continuing the story for a bit it took a wild turn into a dark forest, leaving behind the bomb on Maple Street. The story progressed very similarly to Hansel and Gretel. At this point he was writing with very little prompting and the story just flowed out on its own. But when he was done, he was done. The story no longer bore any relation to the original title or implied plot. I tried to help him make some of the questions but wasn’t sure how to start getting him to think about it. Jon came up with a really simple but good prompt to get him thinking about it. We got through writing the questions but Angel never really came up with his own tricky distracter which was part of the point of the exercise. It sounds like we’ll be doing it again so next time he may have a better idea of what this activity is all about and we can work from there.
I went out to get the snacks which were promised as a special treat for the kids. Sounds like positive reinforcement to me, although they aren’t always going to get snacks. We haven’t discussed schedules of reinforcement in class yet. Angel decided he’d help me pass out snacks and once everyone else had theirs he got his. I thought that was really nice of him and I thanked him. We sat back down at the table we’d been working at and drew for the remaining time. Angel drew a castle that had juice spilled on it. He then drew my name on a piece of paper in big colorful letters. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my name written in good hand writing. Angel took off and we had our usual debriefing. We discussed the distributive writing activity.
Reflection
The distributive writing was very awkward to start. Angel didn’t think it sounded fun at first and I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t have thought that was play either. Still, once he started getting into his own portion of the story he just wrote away and seemed to have a good time with it. I wasn’t sure what to think about him taking the idea from Hansel and Gretel. Should I suggest he try to get his creative juices flowing and come up with something more his own? That sure would make me a big hypocrite though since I did something similar in 2nd grade. I guess I’d seen this short independent film called “The Red Balloon” that was made in the 50’s. It had no dialog and was about a half hour long. It was about a boy and this red balloon that had a personality of its own. I opted not to be too critical of Angel (something I need to do more often in general) and encourage him to let the story flow the way he wanted. The first part of the story was about a bomb on Maple Street and it was very difficult to get Angel to think of anything that would tie into to the original. It was far easier for him once his writing was fueled and directed by his own creative freedom.
Children seem to see things in much more black and white ways. This is in stark contrast with my resistance in seeing anything as an absolute. There just isn’t time to explain why something is a gray area and there are lots of other things to consider, but generally this is pretty black or that is pretty white. At this point it’s best to just drop them as axioms and add the exceptions to their model of the world gradually. I find it really difficult though because I have an unreasonable compulsion to not misrepresent anything, ever. It also ties in to a personal moral philosophy in regards to lying. Without getting in to it too much, I’m going to have to get used to what I call lying and dishonesty if I’m going to work well with the kids. I don’t think most people would see it that way, but we likely have different views on “white lies” and other justified dishonest acts.