Amazing.

Despite illness and some general unhappiness, I've had a couple amazing days at CYNH.

Yesterday was Fall Fest at Seabrook. This means that each grade level got an hour and 20 minutes to be outside and do PT and teambuilding games with City Year. Fall Fest is mostly about buildling visibility in the school, so that the kids know who we are. They get to go outside and run around, and we get to introduce them to City Year culture and make them think that we are cool. Or at least not think that we are huge giant nerds.

I had been moderately voiceless for a couple days at this point, but my voice miraculously reappeared yesterday morning. I once again discovered the magic of Vault soda in the morning (not very tasty, but really quite effective). I was a facilitator, so groups of kids cycled through my station while I lead them in teambuilding games. Sometimes I don't realize how loud I can be until I have to be... Overall the day went really well, the kids seemed to be mostly engaged in the activities. I even managed to be incredibly City Year inclusive and got a kid on crutches engaged in a game of Blob Tag. We were both human boundaries and made the game harder by making the game space smaller and smaller as the game went on. Of course, there are pictures documenting my amazing feat of inclusivity....




The photo of the day




Half of my team (Will, Matt, and Sara). I adore these three.




Timona and his kids look like they belong on some piece of City Year merchandise

Today was the most amazing day ever. We had office time in the morning, and got to school just in time for my planning block. We had performance plan reviews going on in the space where I generally spend my free period at school, so I left in search of the music class. I met the teacher, who is only four years older than I am. His jaw almost hit the floor when I told him I have a music degree. He seemed amazed that I have a college degree and am doing City Year... Anyway, I hung out in the general music class and got to spend some quality time with my little sister (one of the girls i'm mentoring through Big Brothers Big Sisters) while she played guitar. I'm jealous that they get guitar and piano classes, except that the band and choir program is almost non-existent. They only have band and choir in 5th and 6th grade right now, and the teacher is trying to prove to the school that those things are necessary in all grades. Within about an hour of being there, I was at the keyboard leading warm-ups and playing parts and accompanying for choir. At the end of the day I stopped by to get the exact schedule for band and choir classes, and Matt (Mr. Wooley... he's seriously almost my age, so it feels weird calling him Mr. Wooley... but anyway) says, hey, could you learn this accompaniment for choir so that I can record you playing it and have it when you're not here? And I'm like, well I'd love to, but I don't have anywhere to practice, let me see if I can get a keyboard somewhere. He walks over and takes a keyboard and keyboard stand out of the closet and tells me to take them home to practice. I hesitated, not wanting to take resources from the kids, but the headphone jack is broken so they can't use the keyboard in class. So next thing I know, I'm the accompanist for the choir, I have music to practice, and a keyboard to practice on. And I'm happy. Really really happy.

Powerful Day

It's amazing the things you can find time to do when you don't feel like doing what you need to do. Like updating my blog, when I need to finish my Corps Member Performance Plan for tomorrow.... I get to answer such exciting questions as "What steps and strategies will you use to follow City Year guidelines regarding grooming and appearance?" "What support will you need from your team leader in order to dress appropriately and wear the uniform powerfully?"

So instead, my loyal readers, let me tell you about the last few days. :)

We started in-class support yesterday. Frankly, this was the aspect of my work that I was most nervous about, mostly because I feel it is where we can be the most powerful. This is where I can be really great and make a huge difference, or I can feel like I am completely wasting my time (and by association, my year). I am assigned to support the 7th grade social studies teacher. This means that I sit through the same class 4 times a day. The kids are working on country reports this week, and I'm guessing they will be working on them for another week or two after this. We were in the library the last two days, so that the kids could gather information in a very structured format. They aren't allowed to use computers on this project, so it's very hands-on. I worked with so many kids, and I really felt like I was helping. I guess that's the meaning of "direct service", huh? There were so many kids who just needed someone to sit with them and keep encouraging them and reminding them that they are capable of doing the work. I can see myself in some of the kids--the ones who are so eager to do the work and be finished with it. I check in with them, but I know that they don't really need me there. The kids that I've bonded with are the ones with almost no attention span, and the ones who are way behind their classmates in reading and writing.

There are two Jamaican students in the school, who have no problem with comprehension, but because they are shy and have trouble communicating, the teachers think they are way behind. Really all they need is someone to give them a little push and help them along with the work. One of my teammates is paired with the older boy, and the younger boy comes through my social studies class. I worked with him the last two days. Yesterday he was so quiet, and did the work, but didn't want to talk and only did the bare minimum. Today he opened up a little, and asked me a lot about City Year and told me about the corps members he worked with last year. He was so excited, and we sailed through the project. I think he and his brother face more problems with the teachers' perception of them than with the actual content of the work. This is where I see that City Year can play a crucial role in their education--if the boys can open up to us, then they will have the support they need to get through their classes.

I've also had some quality bonding time with my teammate that is serving in 7th grade with me. He is the person I knew the least about up until very recently, but we've become fast friends this week. He reminds me a lot of a friend from home, and we've had some great conversations during our planning time the last few days. We decided that we're going to write "Tales from the EC" (EC is the electrical closet--the space that the school lets us use to keep our stuff and do our work when we're not in class. It's really much better than it sounds.) By the end of the year, we'll be able to write one another's life story.

So all in all, an eventful but powerful week. Of course we've had the usual drama within the corps and team, but I'm feeling good about service.

First week in school

Another long week. I should stop being surprised that I don't have the energy to write a blog during the week.

It was our first week at Seabrook Middle School this week. On Monday we did our community launch and had an assembly to introduce ourselves to the students. They had standardized testing this week, so we're not actually starting in-class assistance until next week. After The Bell started on Tuesday, and we had a GREAT first week. We didn't have a lot of kids, but enrollment should go up in the next couple weeks. Tuesday we played lots of running around games, Wednesday we made name collages, and Thursday we went out and built nature/fairy houses in the woods. I've been working closely with a boy named Matt, who has some learning and developmental handicaps. He's such a great kid, and as far as he's concerned, if you're City Year, you can do no wrong. A couple of us have been doing lots of one-on-one work with him during homework time and during After the Bell; he's reason enough to go to work some days.

Yesterday we did physical service in Salem, NH for Comcast Cares day. My team and Dave's team were paired up there, and we painted this ENORMOUS playground structure. It was pretty disorganized, but it was definitely a transformational project. Pictures!
(The first one is the "before" shot)

To the lighthouse

Ok, Dad. I lied.

There are lots of things to take pictures of in York. One of them is the Nubble Lighthouse, which (to my sincere amazement) is at the end of my street.

When you live in York, and all but two of your co-workers live in New Hampshire, you don't get a lot of random visitors. Yesterday, Eva, Quinn, Jesse, and Justine showed up to visit us, so we all walked to the lighthouse.