Today has been by far the most enjoyable day since I have started working at Friends of Parkside. We were short on staff and the director, as well as the executive director had to leave, so I was left in charge. Usually Ms. Sullivan oversees the computer lab, but she wasn’t available to do so today. In the computer lab several different community members and residents (mainly kids) come to utilize the internet. I saw a lot of different kids coming in and out all day wanting to use the lab, but unfortunately, we only have 5 computers. To make things fair, FOP started using “return slips” so each person gets one hour on the computer and after their hour is up someone with a return slip is able to replace the previous user.
I absolutely LOVE working with kids even if it is not super interactive. Most of the kids were receptive to my presence and many of the girls and boys held conversations with me, which I thought was really cute. I had the chance to interact with a lot of kids today and that’s one thing I’ve really been wanting to do. FOP is a place where many of the kids living in the community come for entertainment and I have not been able to be a part of that experience of FOP. So today was a treat. Today I met a 12-year-old girl who came in and she was the sweetest little lady. As soon as she came in she asked me “what’s your name?” and I told her, then she referred to me as “Ms. Jasmyne” the rest of the time she was here. It was nice to see how polite she was to me as well as the other kids in the lab. I also had a run-in with a baby Einstein. I do not remember her name, but she was 7 years old and something was wrong with the sound on her computer, so I’m trying different stuff and she literally told me everything I should have been clicking on. Although we still didn’t figure it out, it was clear she was way more computer literate than I was at her age.
Aww then there was this little boy named Ernest, he was really shy and his brother was like the polar opposite. Ernest was so intimidated when he came into the lab and it was obvious he was afraid to approach me initially because he didn’t know me. So I called him over and explained to him about the “return slips” because all of the computers were full and it just so happened that his older brother was occupying one of them, so he was kind of being mean to Ernest and told him to leave. I talked to him and told him it was almost time for someone to get off of a computer and he cracked a smile and left.
I am such a sucker for kids, even the ones with bad attitudes because I had some of those too. I was really tired today and not feeling my best, but interacting with the kids made me feel better. Their conversations with their friends and their desire to all want to be adults tickled me. I remember wishing the exact same thing at their age and now that I’m an adult, I want to be a kid again. Haha guess I did some self reflecting today also.
It was definitely a good day.
Your week sounded really fun! I love kids too, wish I got to work with some at my work haha! Wait so is the computer lab in your office or is it at the community center? Either way, sounds awesome that you guys can provide computers to the community
Reblogged this on naldensmich and commented:
I had a similar experience with a kid in a Detroit classroom. It was my first or second day and we were going out to do writer evaluations during a poetry lesson, and this little girl asked me to help her with her poem. Many of the kids were receptive to me even though it was the first time they’d seem me in their classroom with the other, more familiar, iO interns. The other interns had been doing short lessons in classrooms for weeks by then.