Detention Center 07/10/14 (10:30 - 12:00 and 1:00 - 2:30)

Detention Center 07/10/14 (10:30 - 12:00 and 1:00 - 2:30)

On this visit to the detention center I finally ended up grading some workbooks. It is interesting how unfamiliar I was with what the students were working on. I have helped a couple of the students figure out problems or I explained concepts they were having difficulty understanding, but I had not looked through an entire workbook till now. I found grading to frustrating and tedious. First, there is no standard for the grading. If a student answers one concept that is given to us in the key, but also provides two additional answers that may or not be correct, do we give them partial credit for the correct segment, or no credit because they did not answer the questions exactly how the key has it written. There are many more confusing points to make, but I do not want to go into it.

Instead of class, the students had a guess who taught them how to make lotion. At first I thought that most of the students would find this activity boring or "lame", but from what I could hear from classroom I was working in, all the students were respectful and were participating. This was a good reminder to myself that I need to stop jumping to conclusions about the temperament and interests of the students. 'I am not all knowing', that is hard for me to admit.

I have enjoyed my time at the detention center. The program needs a tremendous amount of work and an overseer who will be with it for several years to make sure it is standardized and consistent. It has been a great opportunity to come in on the ground floor of a very beneficial program that will hopefully help some of these students achieve more then they thought possible before.      

Detention Center 07/02/14 10:30am - 12:00pm/1:00pm - 2:30pm

Finally got back to the Detention Center. I was happy to see mostly new faces, which means, I was happy to see that most of the students I saw before have moved on to less restrictive environments and hopefully are doing well and staying out of trouble. There was one female student who I recognized from past visits. When I said that I was surprised she was still there, she responded that she had gotten out, but got in trouble again and was sent right back. She giggled when I mentioned the revolving door affect. She seems very bright, has no problem with the workbooks, she is respectful, and always participates in the games. I do not know her story, so I am trying not to judge, but it is a shame she keeps coming back. The students were well focused and pretty much stayed on task. I was able to help a little bit with some questions, but for the most part, we watch. When some of the kids looked tired and distracted right before lunch, I posed a question to the group. 'Why do they think education is important?' One boy's answer was communication. He went on to say that learning and receiving an education helped us communicate better with peers and employers making it less difficult to gain respect and employment. This was a great answer. I will be going back next week on Tuesday and Thursday and I hope to interrupt workbook time for a short time and pose another question that might help these students realize why they doing all this work. Really I hope to hear some answers that show me these students are independent thinkers.