Hi Martin--
You make two points about the activities at our local boys and girls
club that I would like to link and discuss a little.
1.
2) The children in the homework club were dutifully filling in blanks on
pieces of paper. They were going through the motions of calculating the
mean of three numbers (apparently picked out of no context) and writing
the result down. A very school like activit
3) I would add of course that the interaction between the UCSD students and
the children is as important as any of the contexts that set the
interaction.
The situation in the homework room, dictated by the school system, is
totally contrary to what we ahve worked for more than a decade to
institutionalize there. But EVERYWHERE in California, kids are having
their noses put on "basic skills" grindstones afterschool as well as
in school. Hence, around Califronia, we see homework help being
associated with 5thD systems.
Second, the entire system is set up to make the interaction of undergrads
and kids work well. What has encouraged me is that as the undergrads
now work with the kids in both the 5thD AND homework room, real relationships
are forming and the drudge work for the little kids is being leavened by
their interactions with the undergrads that both appear to create
zopeds pretty routinely after a few weeks but also spill over to after
homework.
The very fact that the school has handed over to the Boys and Girls Club
the responsibility for the homework hour (which hese kids HAVE to go to)
re-mediates our activities in many challenging ways.
Thanks for the comments.
mike
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