TBGC Session 4/ABGC Session 7

The kids in Troy were very rambunctious today. We started the day with a post-test for the basket weaver, which will double as a pre-test for the graffiti grapher, which we moved on to today. Most of the kids complained, or informed me that they had already taken that test. I told them they had to do it if they wanted to move on to something new, which made them plod through it.

When everyone finished their tests, we started reading about the history and culture of graffiti. It was very difficult for the kids to sit quietly and listen while one of their peers read a section. Many were moving ahead too quickly to actually be reading the sections, others complained that the person reading was too slow, and some continued to remind us that there were 15 different pages to read. The kids all seemed very anxious to do something else today. I think it probably was because last time they had been doing something hands on, and this time they had to sit and learn again.

We arrived in Albany ten minutes early, and there were already many kids in the computer lab. Some were participants in our group while many were not. All the kids were playing games on the computers, and it was very difficult to encourage them to transition from games to math.

Some of the kids had already started virtual patterns to turn into a physical bead strip last time, so they finished them and were able to start making their beads. The kids who had not started a design were much harder to convince. They just wanted to continue playing games. One child's continuous argument is that it is the summer and he shouldn't have to do math. It didn't help that some of the counselors in training got on the computers to play games when we were telling the kids to do the exact opposite.

There were a few kids who finished their beadwork and were happy with it. They were excited to take it home. It's always nice to see kids proud of their work when we have all worked so hard to encourage them to do so.