Peter Paul: Day Four

DAY FOUR
Tuesday / March 20, 2012
Today marks the fourth consecutive day  for the Peter Paul Development posse in Richmond, Virginia. On this beautiful Tuesday, I was excited to finally get more involved with the kids and go full force into the classrooms, absorbing as much as I can about their lives and the neighborhoods that these kids derive from. During the duration of the week, I will be placed in different classrooms and the first teacher I was placed with was Ms. Reed.

In her class of roughly 19 students, I was solely focused on assisting one particular student named Calvon. Alongside Calvon, I also helped a little girl named Alaunna since she was also behind in the class. I helped them type on the laptops to create sentences from their spelling words, as well as helped touch base on the early explorers of North America such as Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de Leon. Calvon, specifically, had issues with focusing and effectively being able to produce a sentence with the words that were given. I had to keep most of my attention on him and was told to write for him on his assignments, as well as having to spoon-feed him the answers. In many ways, I wish they would give him more of an opportunity to do it himself, even though I completely understand that he is so much farther behind all the other students. What's shocking though is that even the other students are struggling with the curriculum, in which is behind compared nationally. It isn't an easy task trying to teach kids to read to learn, when they haven't even learned to read. It's a constant struggle. Overall, I see that the school systems in this area need increased funding and assistance to help allow these students to grow academically.

After this, there was also a brief practice tornado drill and we then went back into the classroom to begin on math problems. In math, they focused on the geometric shapes and the differences between their edges, faces, and sides. Following math, it was then time for lunch and recess. Lunch was awkwardly placed and they had it as early as 10:00 A.M.! Seeing as hectic as it was in the lunchroom though, I completely understand why they scattered the lunch times like they did with the abundant amount of students and how there was not much supervision in the lunchroom. Another thing that I noticed about the cafeteria is the lack of food options. Many of the kids did not necessarily have healthy choices when picking their food, with countless students picking food such as Doritos and a greasy taco salad. Even when picking the healthy options though, not much food was provided to the kids and they were not given adequate time to eat. Recess was right after lunch and during this, I got to know one of the girls named Saddiya. She was one sassy, little girl pulling me along wherever she went and commanding me to go down the slide with her, as well as push her on the swing. While we hung out, she told me about her siblings a little bit saying how she had around 12 brothers and sisters on her father's side and 5 on her mother's. I was stunned by that number, but I was also reminded of what was stated yesterday while I was at the Peter Paul Development Center and how those living in poverty are more likely to have more children due to the increased funding through welfare.

After this, we went straight to the Peter Paul Development Center. There, they provided us a meal that they normally give to the children. The meal was absolutely delicious and filling, consisting of baked and seasoned chicken, a huge pile of sweet potatoes, and some tasty green beans. When I was done eating, I was then able to help with Mr. Ted's class again. Since my student that I had helped on Monday, Dominic, was not there I was assigned to help a sixth grade girl named Octavia. Ted told me that Octavia was one of the smartest and most respectful students at the Center and I completely agree with that statement. She was extremely bright and worked well on her own. During my time with her we worked on long-division, read a book called "Romeo and Juliet Code" by Phoebe Stone, and even had a few extra minutes to spare to play a game online called "Fireboy and Watergirl". It was an absolute blast working with her and she is a prime example of how the program is helping young individuals like her. I am so excited for her to go out and make an impact in the world and it's great to see how this organization is making a difference in these kids lives.