Friday, November 8, 2013

Week 3 at Onondaga

This was my first week actually implementing a game that the students did not know ahead of time. With the 4th graders I introduced a modified handball game. All of the students seemed to really enjoy the game, and all students participated without any problems. They were receptive to my instruction, and caused no problems at all. This seemed to be how it went for all of the students expect for the older students. The 8th graders wanted nothing to do with playing a game of handball. They gave me a lot of trouble, and the after-school director ended up just having them play a game of dodgeball. I had found out after about 10 minutes of trying to convince the students that handball is a fun game, that they had just finished their handball unit in physical education. This made it so they did not want to play anymore as they perceived it as a continuation of class. If I had known this ahead of time I would have planned a different activity. It was actually a bit embarrassing for me that these students were giving me such a hard time, and I could not figure out why until their physical education teacher explained to me that they had just finished this unit.

When the students started to give me trouble in the 8th grade, I thought it may have had something to do with someone outside of Onondaga Nation trying to come in and teach them. I soon realized that I have to forget myself that it does not matter where I am from or who I am, but that this is there after-school program. They do not want to do anything that is going to remind them of the school day especially right after finishing their homework. These students want to use this time as social time with each other.

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