Reflection # 1
Before our first visit I was pretty nervous because I’ve worked with middle school kids once and I was not in charge of anything. I was just kind of there so I was scared that I wouldn’t know what to do and it would be awkward and they would make fun of me. Once we got there though I knew that it would be fine and the kids were pretty nice. There were a couple of moments I was kind of overwhelmed because it was a group of middle school boys but once we got to know them and they opened up I feel like the vibe of the room really changed. I think setting up the desks in a circle was a really good idea because then nobody was really left out by sitting in the back and what not. And I think letting them sit where they want has its pros and cons. It is definitely tricky because when they sit next to their friends they could mess around but also I think that allowing them to do so will help them warm up and be more honest when the time comes and when we need it to.
After the first visit though I was really pleased with how it went, I think having the teachers there to help calm the kids down and keep them on task was really good because they are used to listening to their teachers and they haven’t fully warmed up to us yet. I also really liked how at the end of the day on the first day we had the second restorative circle and had them say three things that were important to them because I we got to know more about them and they got to know more about us and I loved getting to know where there heads were at and what they loved and valued, I definitely think it went better than two truth and a lie did. I think going forward the biggest thing is going to be making sure we’re more assertive about listening well, especially about storytelling because that’s what we’re there to do and we can’t let them think that it’s okay to laugh about serious things even though it can be uncomfortable to talk about.
Reflection #2
During these site visits, my number one goal was to understand the importance of building trust and fostering collaboration with the kids. Confidence has also been essential because having to stand in front of a room with teenagers and getting them to listen to you can’t let them see that you’re nervous. In interactions, I’ve tried to listen actively and empathetically, acknowledging the perspectives of the kids. Being open to ideas has been a cornerstone of my approach. For instance, during one of the visits we had to keep telling the kids to be respectful to their peers because since they are teenage boys they often joke around a lot. Still, we made sure to remind them to be respectful and mindful of their peers when they were sharing an experience. Reflecting on my behaviors, I recognize areas where I’ve been effective and others where improvement is needed. By demonstrating genuine interest in the work of the kids and validating their stories, I’ve helped provide a positive atmosphere beneficial to collaboration. However, there are areas where I could do better. For instance, I’ve noticed times where my tendency to follow the plan as much as I could may have inadvertently overshadowed the importance of active listening. Recognizing the need to have a better balance between offering insights and allowing space for dialogue. Another thing I’ve noticed is when I would get overwhelmed at the school I tended to get frustrated with the kids so I would take a minute while they were writing or drawing or doing their interviews and calm myself down and it helped. Overall, these site visits have been very valuable and fun learning experiences, highlighting the importance of empathy, and adaptability in effective partnerships. Moving forward, I am committed to further refining my approach and deepening our collaborations for greater impact. I hope to use these not only during the remainder of my time at SIUE but in my future in education. The best experience that someone could gain when wanting to be a teacher is observations and on site experience so getting to work with kids in an age range I haven’t worked with yet was very beneficial especially for practicing patience, adaptability and respect, and making sure they understand respect as well.
#3
For the site visits I was in charge of making the pre and post survey for the students. It honestly wasn’t too hard because we came up with the questions together and then we worked on it together and I just plugged them in. I think the hardest part was getting the data from it because at first the survey wasn’t working and then when it was working it wouldn’t show me the results. I also did a couple of the interviews on site with my group, as we all did, and when we started it wasn’t easy. The kids were kind of shy and not very talkative so it was hard to get in depth answers from them and sometimes it was hard to get them to answer more than two or three words. It got easier as we went on and they started giving more in depth answers but there were tricky times because a lot of the time one of the kids would be really interested and the other one was not. For me one of the hardest and most challenging parts of the interviews would be trying to spark more answers out of them. I’m not very good at coming up with interview questions on the spot so trying to find some at first that would be beneficial and they would answer was hard. Another challenge was making sure that they stayed on track while they were working because a lot of the time it was them on computers and if we weren’t watching very closely they would start playing games or working on something else but for the most part if we asked them to get back on track they would do it. I think another challenge for me was putting together the videos and getting videos and pictures for their video on their computer. This was hard for me because I have almost no experience in doing stuff like that so when they would ask questions a lot of the time I did not have the answer and I would have to ask one of the other CODES students to come over and help me out.
#4
The article I found and chose was titled “ Community Led – Development: a Pathway for Sustainable Change” (Article) which gave some insight about a project that took place in Southeast Asia that was aiming to empower local residents and strengthen community resilience through participatory approaches. Both our project and the one in the source emphasize the importance of community empowerment and ownership. It highlights the importance of involving community members in decision-making processes. For example, when we started our project in order to make sure we were getting as accurate of responses as we could we wanted to make sure we got a good group of students to participate. With the help of community partners, mostly within the school, we were able to get a group of 15 students who all had stories they wanted to talk about. Through our on-site work, we’ve learned firsthand the complexities and all the things that could go wrong with partnership engagement, including the importance of building trust, fostering open communication, and adapting strategies to local contexts. These insights complement the findings of the article. For example, our group specifically has been through quite the journey when it comes to community partnership and working together. I think one of the biggest things that has helped our team with adaptability and complications is how much we’ve gone through that has caused us to adapt quick and all the complications with it. Our team are kind of pros when it comes to making quick fixes and going with the flow when something goes haywire We have also gone through a lot in our own classroom with professor changes and sometimes our plans with community partners don’t always go according to plan and it has helped us with last minute changes. For future works and purposes I know that I can take all the things I learned during my time working with and at the Alton middle school and apply it to whatever I do in the future. My plan is to be a teacher so seeing a different age range and what all they like and dislike will be helpful but I am also minoring in criminal justice and some of the students talked about violence in their lives and how it affected them growing up, so knowing what they saw and went through and hearing how what teachers did to help them was very beneficial.
#5
Overall, I really liked the work we did this semester at the school. I was so so so SO nervous when we first started because I had no idea what to expect or what to do but I knew that it would be fine because me and everyone else were doing it together. I remember feeling really happy after the first day, because even though I was extremely nervous, I still thought it went pretty well, or as well as it could have gone for the first day. It was kind of hard at first because I remember that it was just me and Arri for the first ten or so minutes but once Spencer and Stephen showed up it felt like they started listening better. I think it was hard the first day because they didn’t fully understand what was being taught and talked about. When working with other people I knew a lot of what to know but I think that it was still good to practice. Knowing that nothing is going to work exactly how it is planned. Also knowing that sometimes people are just having a bad day and as tough as it may be, we can’t take it personally. I think also after working with people for a decent amount of time we can learn little things about them, such as what does and doesn’t overwhelm them and what they tend to do when they are overwhelmed. We talked about this in our presentation but I think somethings that we learned along the way was just how difficult it was to collect the data we wanted with the focus group we chose. I think if we wanted more in depth answers we should have gone with high school aged and Arri talked about how if we wanted to gather data about violence and data that was solely focused on violence we should have tried to go to a juvenile center. I know I already said this but I really liked the work we did over the semester. It may not have been exactly what we were hoping for but it still turned out really good and we all had a really fun time.