July 1, 2016 – Today has been one of the most challenging days of my life. Today at Maxville Park, I worked with the primary age group, there were approximately twenty children ranging in ages from three through six. Prior to working at Maxville I have had little to no experience in facilitating an activity with this age group. In my mind, I thought that because the children were young that they would be easy to engage and I was pretty excited to engage with them.
When I first saw the children all I could think about was how cute they were and how easy it would be because they were young; I thought I would say “let’s play a game” and everyone would stop what they were doing and focus on the game. They did the exact opposite. It took me a while to realize that part of the problem was that I was a new face. They were unfamiliar with my presence, so they were not as willing to participate.
I knew that it was important to learn the children’s names in order to build a connection with them, that was a challenge as well. I am not great with names and the children would tell me their names, but they were both quiet spoken and speaking with an accent. I was not able to learn everyone’s name, but I made a point to engage with each of the children in order to have some type of connection with them.
Two of the children in particular I did build a strong connection with. One of the girls, Danielle is blind. She “petted” me down to familiarize herself with me. Throughout the day even when I was not next to her, she was able to identify who I was even though she could not see. At first it was a bit weird for her to be so attached to me, I have never met a child who was blind for most of the individuals who I have met with this specific disability (who’ve been older) are very independent. It took most of the day for me to realize that she really needed that attention. It was not “assistance” that she was seeking, but rather familiarity and attention.
It took maybe a thousand attempts to get the children interested in playing Duck Duck Goose. I would choose the goose and run to escape being caught, and the kids would look at me in awe and confusion because to them I looked like a crazy girl running in a circle.
Overall, the game turned out better than I thought it would. After several attempts of running in circles some of the children began to play. It showed me they did want to play, they were just unfamiliar with the game and rejected it at first because it was something new. I could deeply relate with the children because I personally have rejected things because I was afraid; today was a transition from my fear of diving into and accepting the experiences that I am having here in Jamaica, learning to run.
Lakeeya C., SEED Public Charter School