For the second week of the program, we focused on Eureka! Training. We started the week off with a little team building. It was nice to learn more about my fellow Duke Engagers and also to get to know our leaders at Girls Inc. I was almost overwhelmed by how much support we had from them. The environment Girls inc. creates is very friendly, open, and collaborative. Our program leaders are so energetic and welcoming, they took away a lot of the anxiety I had about interacting with new people over zoom. Before we learned more about the camp and our roles as educators, we first needed to understand some of our more serious responsibilities. Since we are working with kids, we are mandated reporters meaning that if we see signs of abuse we are obligated to report them. Learning about this was very eye-opening, and while it was difficult, I am very glad to have learned about this. I am better equipped to see signs of abuse and address these difficult situations with sensitivity and grace.
We ended training by learning more about Eureka! curriculum and our roles in the camp. We also got some tips about how to navigate zoom meetings and structure our lesson plans. The first few meetings on zoom will definitely be awkward and rocky, but I think as I get more experience the zoom silence won’t feel as deafening. Some tips I think I will take with me are to count to 10 after asking questions before moving on and to make presentations as interactive as possible. I am teaming up with Scout to lead the lesson for Websites for a Cause Day 1. We will be walking the kids through an introduction to advocacy and some HTML website coding. After going through the two-week curriculum for camp, I am super impressed by what these kids are learning, and I wish I would have done something like this when I was younger.
We ended week 2 with a team reflection and our first race affinity workshop meeting. One moment I really appreciated during our team reflection was opening up and talking about our struggles as women in STEM. This was super helpful because it was comforting to hear that other girls had the same experiences as I. Also, I got tips for overcoming these struggles that I can share with the girls I’ll be meeting at the camp. For the first race affinity workshop, I was in the BIPOC group since I am Asian American. We also combined with the Detroit program, so it was interesting to meet some new people. It wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. In fact, I laughed much more than I expected to. The leader and the people in my group were super open about our experiences as people of color. I hope this trend continues as the groups combine. Next week, we move to asynchronous lesson planning. I’m a little sad that I won’t see everybody’s faces for a while, but also I am grateful for the extra flexibility and excited to plan our lessons.