Just one improvement
Every child has potential to improve. Moving to a different primary school for our summer camp this week showed just that. Students at the first school we did camp at made Crayola marker towers, wanted to paint on the wall where they weren’t supposed to, and ran in circles screaming “shakka shakka sha hey!” At the second camp, the students were much different.
The first thing we noticed was the violence. Unprovoked hits, kicks, pushes and “stoning” were the most fashionable. Of course, this only led to more fighting until one student was crying or running to a teacher and the other standing victorious. In addition, the most popular students were those who hit and shoved the most, reinforcing the aggressive behavior. In sharp contrast to the violent attitudes, the students could also be very shy. Our daily “energizer” activities did not elicit as much enthusiasm as the previous camp because they involved a willingness to be vocal in front of one’s peers. This shyness also hampered our effort to teach them the cha-cha slide and electric slide.
These two problems we noticed, however, enticed our group into developing activities to address them. We spent an entire day with activities exclusively directed toward anger management and respecting feelings. The students made masks designed to help deal with inner feelings and expression. With respect to the shyness, they shied away from my attempt to have them read speeches about government ministries. Only during poetry reading of Shel Silverstein was I able to coax any resemblance of public speaking out of the children. By the end of the week, however, I believe their confidence developed enough for them to speak in front of their peers. They may not have been running around and playing all week, but they improved on some important life skills.