It's deja vu here. First week of second session and we're getting another insane heat wave. It's getting bad. It's also making the 12 half mile walks I have to do every day more and more annoying. It's not that I don't like walking 6 miles a day in 100+ weather. If it was the only way, I wouldn't feel as bad. But the fact is that all the RAs know there are more efficient ways to monitor students than to constantly walk back and forth and lose valuable down time and annoy students who have to also walk back and forth. Basically, lots of kids and RAs have to walk to a building a little over half a mile to get to class. Us RAs must walk the kids to class and back for meeting, walk back to that building and back for lunch, walk back to the building and back to pick up the kids, walk to the building and back for the afternoon activity that replaces all the outdoor ones because its too hot, walk to the building and back for their study session, walk to the building and back for their evening activity that replaces the original one because of the heat. And every time we have to walk back because we either have a meeting, have our down time, or have to take commuters places. There is a better way to do this. Lots of us RAs are feeling the pressure and its really pissing us off.
My kids are doing very well now too. There have been no homesickness issues, no bullying issues, no inter-group conflict. I've gotten really luck and I know this session is going to go well. I think on my day off, I'll do a recap post for the big events that happened on that week and a half where I stopped blogging. But for now, I'm sleepy and need to go. Goodnight all,
Kevin
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Day 27
Almost my forth week here! I've noticed some substantial changes between this group and the previous one, and I like them.
First off, these kids seem so much more mellow. They are ok with actually being quiet during quiet time. I came across as pretty harsh (one kid started saying yes sir whenever I told the group to do stuff) on day one, so they know to listen to me and take me seriously. It's quite nice.
It feels so nice knowing what to do and how to manage problems. I think this session is going a lot better than last session as far as behavior goes. I know not every RA is so lucky, but I've lucked out pretty well this whole camp. Good kids that are fun to be with and not too challenging to manage.
That being said, other things are really starting to take a toll on the workforce here and are frustrating us RAs.
The new rules basically force us to be constantly walking kids back and forth to class, and lots of us are walking a mile and a half per trip and having to make 4 or 5 trips per day. That wouldn't be too terrible if TAs didn't get paid extra for having to walk kids 500 feet from a nearby parking lot to the classroom. It's annoying a lot of RAs that we walk way more but don't get any compensation, even though we probably spend more quality time and working time with the kids than the TAs. Such is work, I suppose. In the end, there's not much I can do.
Basically, this session has seen a lot of changes for me. New floor, new room, new kids, updated rules. Lots of interesting challenges and fun happenings. The kids are really excited and are having lots of fun in classes.
There was an incident today though at lunch that was...interesting. A student asked me who my favorite person in the world was (I said my dad, for those of you wondering). I then returned the question and asked her who her favorite person was. She responded with, "me!" and then began to brag about herself for 15 minutes about how awesome she thinks she is. Then when I asked another kid who their favorite person was in their life, this girl starts shouting "pick me! pick me!".
I hope she fails her class. It'll be very good at dampening some of that absurd cockiness.
Signing off,
Kevin
First off, these kids seem so much more mellow. They are ok with actually being quiet during quiet time. I came across as pretty harsh (one kid started saying yes sir whenever I told the group to do stuff) on day one, so they know to listen to me and take me seriously. It's quite nice.
It feels so nice knowing what to do and how to manage problems. I think this session is going a lot better than last session as far as behavior goes. I know not every RA is so lucky, but I've lucked out pretty well this whole camp. Good kids that are fun to be with and not too challenging to manage.
That being said, other things are really starting to take a toll on the workforce here and are frustrating us RAs.
The new rules basically force us to be constantly walking kids back and forth to class, and lots of us are walking a mile and a half per trip and having to make 4 or 5 trips per day. That wouldn't be too terrible if TAs didn't get paid extra for having to walk kids 500 feet from a nearby parking lot to the classroom. It's annoying a lot of RAs that we walk way more but don't get any compensation, even though we probably spend more quality time and working time with the kids than the TAs. Such is work, I suppose. In the end, there's not much I can do.
Basically, this session has seen a lot of changes for me. New floor, new room, new kids, updated rules. Lots of interesting challenges and fun happenings. The kids are really excited and are having lots of fun in classes.
There was an incident today though at lunch that was...interesting. A student asked me who my favorite person in the world was (I said my dad, for those of you wondering). I then returned the question and asked her who her favorite person was. She responded with, "me!" and then began to brag about herself for 15 minutes about how awesome she thinks she is. Then when I asked another kid who their favorite person was in their life, this girl starts shouting "pick me! pick me!".
I hope she fails her class. It'll be very good at dampening some of that absurd cockiness.
Signing off,
Kevin
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Day 26
Time to play catch up.
The last week of first session was getting more routine, so I had little to post, and seeing as the session just ended and a new is just starting, I now have some more thoughts that are worth blogging about.
First off, I miss my kids from first session. It is 9:53 AM right now and a new batch of students is arriving in 7 minutes, but I miss my first session kids a lot. Some of them almost cried when leaving. It made a lot of these struggles the past 3 weeks worth it, knowing that I made camp great for some of these children.
Second, I feel so much more prepared going into this session. I know what to expect. My first meeting will be so much more strict and harsh because a little fascism goes a long way with children. Yeah, that's right. I said it.
It feels almost surreal how fast the camp has gone and how slow each day can be. Meetings seem to drag on forever, but then before I know it, the day is over and I'm moving on. I'm already halfway done, halfway paid, and still standing. Even smiling a little. Sure, kids are still a pain sometimes, but I feel so much more ready to deal with that. I won't be surprised now if a kid messes up his room to a disgusting degree, or says something annoying and obnoxious, or disobeys rules.
I think I'm ready for this session. Although if there's any more poop on floors, I'm still going to be disgusted.
-Kevin
The last week of first session was getting more routine, so I had little to post, and seeing as the session just ended and a new is just starting, I now have some more thoughts that are worth blogging about.
First off, I miss my kids from first session. It is 9:53 AM right now and a new batch of students is arriving in 7 minutes, but I miss my first session kids a lot. Some of them almost cried when leaving. It made a lot of these struggles the past 3 weeks worth it, knowing that I made camp great for some of these children.
Second, I feel so much more prepared going into this session. I know what to expect. My first meeting will be so much more strict and harsh because a little fascism goes a long way with children. Yeah, that's right. I said it.
It feels almost surreal how fast the camp has gone and how slow each day can be. Meetings seem to drag on forever, but then before I know it, the day is over and I'm moving on. I'm already halfway done, halfway paid, and still standing. Even smiling a little. Sure, kids are still a pain sometimes, but I feel so much more ready to deal with that. I won't be surprised now if a kid messes up his room to a disgusting degree, or says something annoying and obnoxious, or disobeys rules.
I think I'm ready for this session. Although if there's any more poop on floors, I'm still going to be disgusted.
-Kevin
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
OH FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
That just happened.
This just happened.
I broke the master key while on duty.
*HIT THE PANIC BUTTON*
This just happened.
I broke the master key while on duty.
*HIT THE PANIC BUTTON*
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Day 14
Have I really been blogging for 2 weeks?
I suppose now wouldn't be a bad time for a really reflective piece on the entirety of camp and this job.
After having done half of one session here at this camp, I feel confident in suggesting that being an RA is about managing judgment. I don't mean this exclusively in the context of punishment or discipline, which is something all RAs have to learn how to do and do effectively. Rather, I mean this in a broader sense about the nature of the job.
So much of being an RA, particularly at a camp for more academic students, starts before any action is taken or any interaction occurs between an RA and a student. We judge, as camp counselors, certain activities to be fun, or at least judge our expectations from our superiors to warrant certain degrees of enthusiasm before activities. We judge certain situations to deserve a conciliatory tone when confronting a student, and other situations to deserve a bark or an order or a serious glare.
However, the most critical, and most dangerous judgments, we make as RAs is of the students. We judge certain students to be problem students, and color our actions and our language accordingly. Other students we judge to be adorable and deserving of recognition. I have always been a judging type of person. Most people judge others whether they like it or not, and the ones who don't are most likely lying. The problem, naturally, is what to do when those judgments do not match the reality of a student's personality or unfairly color how we talk or deal with a student's problems.
I took some time today during my down time to think about how I judged certain students at the beginning of camp and compared them to how they have acted over the course of this first week. I knew that most of the judgments I made at first would probably be incorrect and would change, and acknowledged this from the beginning. I knew better than to think that nothing would change about how I thought about these kids or how they acted in three weeks. I knew better day 1, and I know better now.
That didn't change how...surprising it all was when I really made some comparisons though. Kids I thought would be angels and cause little trouble now are the sources of most of my stress each day. Kids I found obnoxious and annoying the first couple of days are now favored in my mind. I guess what bothers me is that favoritism. Probably the one student here who troubles me the most was a student that I gave subtle preferential treatment at the beginning of the camp because he came across as so friendly and cool to me. Don't get me wrong, I didn't let him break any rules or anything serious, but I know that the way that I approached and communicated to this student was substantially different than how I talked to other students. And really, that's all that it takes. Rhetoric and language and the method of communication so easily shapes how students feel about their RAs, their activities, the camp itself, the discipline structure, the activities, that it is no small thing to admit that I have mentally snared and found my own instances of flawed and misguided judgment. To know that how I talk to this student has changed so dramatically, from near-preferential niceness to borderline snappy disciplinarian, forces me to think hard about other students that I judge to be good students and other students I judge to be problem ones.
Also, have I mentioned how bad this heat wave is?
Signing off,
Kevin
I suppose now wouldn't be a bad time for a really reflective piece on the entirety of camp and this job.
After having done half of one session here at this camp, I feel confident in suggesting that being an RA is about managing judgment. I don't mean this exclusively in the context of punishment or discipline, which is something all RAs have to learn how to do and do effectively. Rather, I mean this in a broader sense about the nature of the job.
So much of being an RA, particularly at a camp for more academic students, starts before any action is taken or any interaction occurs between an RA and a student. We judge, as camp counselors, certain activities to be fun, or at least judge our expectations from our superiors to warrant certain degrees of enthusiasm before activities. We judge certain situations to deserve a conciliatory tone when confronting a student, and other situations to deserve a bark or an order or a serious glare.
However, the most critical, and most dangerous judgments, we make as RAs is of the students. We judge certain students to be problem students, and color our actions and our language accordingly. Other students we judge to be adorable and deserving of recognition. I have always been a judging type of person. Most people judge others whether they like it or not, and the ones who don't are most likely lying. The problem, naturally, is what to do when those judgments do not match the reality of a student's personality or unfairly color how we talk or deal with a student's problems.
I took some time today during my down time to think about how I judged certain students at the beginning of camp and compared them to how they have acted over the course of this first week. I knew that most of the judgments I made at first would probably be incorrect and would change, and acknowledged this from the beginning. I knew better than to think that nothing would change about how I thought about these kids or how they acted in three weeks. I knew better day 1, and I know better now.
That didn't change how...surprising it all was when I really made some comparisons though. Kids I thought would be angels and cause little trouble now are the sources of most of my stress each day. Kids I found obnoxious and annoying the first couple of days are now favored in my mind. I guess what bothers me is that favoritism. Probably the one student here who troubles me the most was a student that I gave subtle preferential treatment at the beginning of the camp because he came across as so friendly and cool to me. Don't get me wrong, I didn't let him break any rules or anything serious, but I know that the way that I approached and communicated to this student was substantially different than how I talked to other students. And really, that's all that it takes. Rhetoric and language and the method of communication so easily shapes how students feel about their RAs, their activities, the camp itself, the discipline structure, the activities, that it is no small thing to admit that I have mentally snared and found my own instances of flawed and misguided judgment. To know that how I talk to this student has changed so dramatically, from near-preferential niceness to borderline snappy disciplinarian, forces me to think hard about other students that I judge to be good students and other students I judge to be problem ones.
Also, have I mentioned how bad this heat wave is?
Signing off,
Kevin
Monday, July 2, 2012
Day 12 (Sunday) and Day 13 (Monday)
Well...
Sunday was dress up your RA day.
This activity has been on my students' minds for a few days now. They have been buying make-up and nail polish in anticipation, hoping to turn me into a girl for the "show".
I made it clear that I would only agree to them if one of the kids would agree to do it with me. I figured, either they'll be too chicken to the idea of dressing themselves up, or they'll get to embarrass themselves with me and all will be good and fun.
To my surprise, not one, but two of my residents ended up walking the runway with me in our glorious pink and blue nail polish and poorly applied lipstick. They went nuts two hours before the activity was even supposed to start and were all painted up and ready to go half an hour before we were supposed to gather to be explained what to do. Pictures will come soon, hopefully. Maybe? Not sure if I can add pictures of the students on here.
Regardless, it was pretty fun and was a great way to end a fun Sunday. Other details from that day were pottery painting (which was awesome and the only afternoon activity on Sunday that got to happen because a thunderstorm advisory closed down the outdoor activity planned for other kids) and parent visitations. Those were also interesting because I was left with just one student who didn't leave for a few hours with his family and all he did was homework and all I did was Facebook.
Today had only a couple small details which you may find amusing. The first is waste-related.
I walked in to the bathroom this afternoon and found that the middle stall had been...abused. There was a nice chunk of poop on the ground next to the toilet, a smear on the front of the seat, and a sizable brown log swimming quietly in the bowl, unflushed and smelly, just for my personal viewing pleasure.
We ended up getting a cleanup crew to remove the mess, but it left me feeling thoroughly disgusted.
Also, I've been observing a problematic...trend in my group. I am having a hard time finding ways of integrating everyone together to play games when homework time is done. This leaves the kids to their own devices, where they naturally come up with inane and annoying games to play and fight over, like the "run around shooting nerf guns and screaming because we can" game. Or the "argue about which card game to play that no one knows how to play because we can" game. Or the "lets watch poorly edited Youtube videos about video games that annoy Kevin because we can" game.
I need some more games. They are getting tired of Mafia and I'm fresh out of ideas. Except for maybe one game that I can try tomorrow outside. But if any readers have any ideas for group games to play that don't require much movement/space, let me know. And no, the quiet game doesn't count. Mostly because I make them play that game for homework time which is hard enough to enforce.
Thats all for tonight, folks. Also, naps are glorious.
Signing off,
Kevin
Sunday was dress up your RA day.
This activity has been on my students' minds for a few days now. They have been buying make-up and nail polish in anticipation, hoping to turn me into a girl for the "show".
I made it clear that I would only agree to them if one of the kids would agree to do it with me. I figured, either they'll be too chicken to the idea of dressing themselves up, or they'll get to embarrass themselves with me and all will be good and fun.
To my surprise, not one, but two of my residents ended up walking the runway with me in our glorious pink and blue nail polish and poorly applied lipstick. They went nuts two hours before the activity was even supposed to start and were all painted up and ready to go half an hour before we were supposed to gather to be explained what to do. Pictures will come soon, hopefully. Maybe? Not sure if I can add pictures of the students on here.
Regardless, it was pretty fun and was a great way to end a fun Sunday. Other details from that day were pottery painting (which was awesome and the only afternoon activity on Sunday that got to happen because a thunderstorm advisory closed down the outdoor activity planned for other kids) and parent visitations. Those were also interesting because I was left with just one student who didn't leave for a few hours with his family and all he did was homework and all I did was Facebook.
Today had only a couple small details which you may find amusing. The first is waste-related.
I walked in to the bathroom this afternoon and found that the middle stall had been...abused. There was a nice chunk of poop on the ground next to the toilet, a smear on the front of the seat, and a sizable brown log swimming quietly in the bowl, unflushed and smelly, just for my personal viewing pleasure.
We ended up getting a cleanup crew to remove the mess, but it left me feeling thoroughly disgusted.
Also, I've been observing a problematic...trend in my group. I am having a hard time finding ways of integrating everyone together to play games when homework time is done. This leaves the kids to their own devices, where they naturally come up with inane and annoying games to play and fight over, like the "run around shooting nerf guns and screaming because we can" game. Or the "argue about which card game to play that no one knows how to play because we can" game. Or the "lets watch poorly edited Youtube videos about video games that annoy Kevin because we can" game.
I need some more games. They are getting tired of Mafia and I'm fresh out of ideas. Except for maybe one game that I can try tomorrow outside. But if any readers have any ideas for group games to play that don't require much movement/space, let me know. And no, the quiet game doesn't count. Mostly because I make them play that game for homework time which is hard enough to enforce.
Thats all for tonight, folks. Also, naps are glorious.
Signing off,
Kevin
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Day 10 Part 2 and Day 11
So to continue on what I was talking about in the last post...
Yesterday another incident happened with the same homesick kid that took me back to some of those feelings of doubt I had at the beginning of camp. This time, I responded incorrectly to this student's issue. Whereas my attempt to console and relate to him during his homesickness was admirable and well thought out, my response to his problem yesterday was definitely rash, abrupt, and poorly thought through.
Basically, he was complaining about the large group activity and called it stupid and dumb. I became really frustrated at him and almost immediately took him to see my boss, the head of the dorm. Normally, such a move is reserved for student issues that have no other possible solution. But I got so frustrated because I was afraid his bad attitude would make others in our group unhappy and spoil their activity, I immediately pulled him aside and took him to my boss.
He sorta just deflected the conversation once he started talking to him, and we sorta didn't do anything about it and hoped he would cheer up about the activity later. However, once activities had been going on for about 45 minutes, he approached my boss and explained that the real reason he didn't like the activity was because he thought two other kids in our group were rude and mean to him (something I did not pick up on at all the entire time).
He had a miserable time the entire evening activity because of my lack of patience and failure to respond sufficiently to his problems. Even the post-activity conversation, where I tried to get him to tell me how I could help him deal with his issues with others in our group, all this student did was shake is head and tell me he didn't really want to talk to me.
Talk about a break of trust. I felt responsible and knew I had screwed up big time. The only thing that helped was telling him that he could run a few games of Mafia during quiet hours. But the whole event broke a bit of the happy and confident sentiments I had the night before.
I guess that's all I have to say now. This Saturday has been slow and nice and calm, with the only hard part being staying awake. Enjoy your weekend, readers.
-Kevin
Yesterday another incident happened with the same homesick kid that took me back to some of those feelings of doubt I had at the beginning of camp. This time, I responded incorrectly to this student's issue. Whereas my attempt to console and relate to him during his homesickness was admirable and well thought out, my response to his problem yesterday was definitely rash, abrupt, and poorly thought through.
Basically, he was complaining about the large group activity and called it stupid and dumb. I became really frustrated at him and almost immediately took him to see my boss, the head of the dorm. Normally, such a move is reserved for student issues that have no other possible solution. But I got so frustrated because I was afraid his bad attitude would make others in our group unhappy and spoil their activity, I immediately pulled him aside and took him to my boss.
He sorta just deflected the conversation once he started talking to him, and we sorta didn't do anything about it and hoped he would cheer up about the activity later. However, once activities had been going on for about 45 minutes, he approached my boss and explained that the real reason he didn't like the activity was because he thought two other kids in our group were rude and mean to him (something I did not pick up on at all the entire time).
He had a miserable time the entire evening activity because of my lack of patience and failure to respond sufficiently to his problems. Even the post-activity conversation, where I tried to get him to tell me how I could help him deal with his issues with others in our group, all this student did was shake is head and tell me he didn't really want to talk to me.
Talk about a break of trust. I felt responsible and knew I had screwed up big time. The only thing that helped was telling him that he could run a few games of Mafia during quiet hours. But the whole event broke a bit of the happy and confident sentiments I had the night before.
I guess that's all I have to say now. This Saturday has been slow and nice and calm, with the only hard part being staying awake. Enjoy your weekend, readers.
-Kevin
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