visit 3

Visit Number 3

Today was my third visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. I was looking forward to getting in and getting right down to business with the kids. After stopping and saying good morning and Mr. Lahey and Randy I headed down the hallway to my trailer. As I entered I was greeted with several different “hello Mr. Josh’s” which made me feel very welcome. I went and spoke with Barb for a few minutes and discussed everything I would be covering today. Finally sitting down at my little table in the back I called up my first group of students. Ricky, Julian, Sara, and Lucy all came running over and sat down in front of me. I noticed they sat in the same exact seats as last time which was Ricky next to Julian and then an empty seat and then Sara next to Lucy. I thought it funny and then proceeded to ask them why there was the empty seat in between to which they all replied “because we don’t want to sit next to them.” Thinking nothing of it we jumped right into our first activity. Learning the difference between words spelt differently but are pronounced the same such as there, their, and they’re. I quickly noticed that the children sitting boy/boy and girl/girl was clearly not going to work out. The kids were talking among themselves and clearly not paying attention to the activity. This lead to me separating them girl/boy and girl/boy. This showed quick progress and we were able to move on with our activity. We then moved onto and activity which dealt with fluency again. We went over pronunciation and sight words. It was difficult to explain to the children the purpose of these sight words and the role they play in everyday life. After about forty five minutes it was time to call up my other group of students, the kids seemed so sad to have to go back to their seats. I called up the second group of students and Trinity, Cory, Trevor, and Bubbles and call came running over. I thought it was interesting that Bubbles did not mind sitting next to the girls and because he seemed so calm about it the girls didn’t think it was a big deal either. We jumped right into the activities and the kids quickly absorbed all the materials. During this particular visit I noticed this one child who we’ll call Cyrus giving the teacher a lot of back talk. Cyrus was one of the two white children in the classroom and the kids told me he is in trouble all day every day. The student’s desk is located next to teachers and nowhere near the groupings of desks where all the other children sit. I thought it was interesting to see this child so being so fresh to the teacher and I also happened to notice he was wearing expensive brand name clothing. After my session was up I went up to the teacher and talked to her about Cyrus. Apparently he comes from a family where he is in complete control of his parents. Whatever he wants he gets, and is allowed to behave in the manner he chooses, which explains his unacceptable behavior. Barb then went on to tell me sometimes he gets so carried away she has to call down the principle and have him deal with, and even at that it’s not always successful. She told me he is constantly sent home, and his parents could care less about the negative track record he’s already started for himself. Accept for seeing the disrespectful Cyrus my third visit was a good and successful one.