One of my challenging students, the one that can't keep still, has had a breakthrough!! I took me almost losing my sanity, but all is well. Here's what happened.
I was nearing my breaking point with this child. She started rolling around on the floor during lessons, throwing her shoes across the room, grabbing materials right out of my hand, and causing general mayhem. Lord have mercy, I was losing my mind. Throughout all of this, I was remaining extremely supportive and positive because I don't know what her home life is like. But I'm sure she doesn't get much attention there because she was sure asking for some from me. Finally my supervisor asked to sit in on a lesson with me. Boy, was this child unhappy about that. As soon as she was surrounded by myself and my supervisor, she put her hands behind her head, pursed her lips, and didn't say a word for the rest of the lesson. But she didn't roll around on the floor either, so I think we broke even on that lesson.
My supervisor then told me to try a different tactic. Instead of greeting this student with a smile and always encouraging good work and progress, be extremely matter of fact about everything. If she gets something right, move right on ahead to the next thin, and see how she responds. So the next day comes and I go down to pick this student up for her lesson. I don't even say anything to her, I just ask the teacher if she could please excuse this child for her literacy lesson. The child comes out into the hall and tries to go up the stairs but I stop her and say "Now listen here one minute. We are going to do some hard work today, but if you do good work we will play on the computer at the end of the lesson. If not, I will walk you straight back to class and we will have a talk with your teacher. Do you understand?" and she nodded yes. So then I asked "Are you going to do good work today?" "Yes," she answered. "Alright then, give me a high five," I said. And she did. And the lesson was... perfect. She even wrote a sentence!! I don't think this child has ever written a sentence before. Granted, the sentence was "The cat is fat" but still. Major, major progress. I am still so happy about this. And the next lesson was the same! It's amazing how different all these kids are. Tweaking the techniques used with all of them is an art I'm still learning.
So that's what's going on in my service life, but in my free time I am doing things like GOING TO THE HARRY POTTER WORLD PREMIERE. Yup. I did. Thanks to my friend and fellow YAGM Nathaniel reminding me about the date, because I thought it wasn't until next week. It was AMAZING. All the actors were there, and we could see them all! And, JK Rowling was there. I almost died. It was so great. I am so excited to see the movie now!
Living in England is seriously amazing. I don't ever think about how extremely far away from home I am because communication is so easy. I can watch live concert streams from St Olaf, call home from my house phone, and of course see everyone's pictures on Facebook. Sometimes I do think about the huge ocean separating me from friends and family, and of the events that I'm missing, helping my best friend plan her wedding, but it's totally worth it. I am so happy I am doing this year.
We're introducing Thanksgiving to the British and German volunteers next week! It's a bit early, but the weekend before actual Thanksgiving is when everyone can get together. I hope they don't mind high caloric food because I am definitely cooking Southern style: lots of butter.
Cheers!
xx
Erin
