Ashley- 826 Chicago- Day Three

The day started very early for myself and three of the other girls. We were going to an elementary school to help with one of their in school projects. We were working with three different 7th grade classes. They were being assigned a photo project that would be paired with a writing assignment. It was titled the me that no one knows. The goal was to have them take a photo of a part of them that people may not know about. We went in the classrooms and first introduced the project and then ourselves. With our introductions we had to say who we were and an interesting fact about ourselves. This part was a bit of an unexpected learning for me. With the first class my interesting fact was that I liked to scuba dive. When I said this I could tell that it was not so interesting to them because it wasn’t very relatable. So with the next class I tried to think of something that they might find more interesting or at least could relate to. So I chose to tell them that I had just done a Harlem Shake video with my work. It seemed to work. When we started to go around and help with the writing prompt a few of the kids started asking me questions about the video and it was much easier for me to connect with them and have them more open to me helping them with the assignment. This just taught me that I needed to find a common ground in order to make them feel comfortable with me helping them.  The prompt for the start of the assignment was asking them to make a list of how they saw themselves and then make another list of how they thought other people saw them. This was difficult enough to leave some kids staring at blank pages. So we went around asking them question to help them come up with something. In the first class I felt like it was much harder for me to get them thinking. May be it was the group of kids, my approach or the early morning but it was a bit like pulling teeth. The second class was much better. They were interested in the video I did so they were talkative right away. We discussed future dreams and current home lives. I felt like they did a really good job of brainstorming. It was interesting to see the same social dynamics in that class as I experienced at that age. There is always the loud well-liked crowd and the quieter lesser known kids. At the end of that class’s session one of the more outgoing boys came up to me and shyly told me he liked my eyes. He’s friend who was clearly the ringleader of the spot-light-seekers was sitting next to him. He then leans over and tells me he liked my ass and proceeded to hand me a piece of paper he  tore off of his worksheet with his phone number on it. I was shocked at how forward these kids were compared to people I went to school with in 7th grade. I later found out that the second guy was actually 15 and had been held back several times. This made a bit more since and further showed me that this was a different world then the one I had known at their age.