There it is! This is the "Green House" and it is where I am/will be living until November. Like I said in the last post it's an old plantation house. It used to live on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay in Chestertown, MD but it was moved (like they move many houses) to it's current location. It is on-campus and just a short run down a gravel road to get from the tents where the kiddies sleep to the house. I share my room with Zu (Zuzanna) and our room is the 2 windows on the right side (from this view). My other house-mates are my co-workers Dani, Clarence, Koddee, and Kiva. Everyone besides Koddee and I are from the East/Eastcoast. Koddee is from Montana and I'm from the furthest west location. The rest of my co-workers are great people as well. Four of them are interns and just out of highschool. It's interesting to have them as peers because of the job we have (working here) and knowing we are in very different stages of life.
Okay now on to the 1st week with kids (last week):
On Monday a school came just for a day program (10th graders). It was a a good intro to hanging out with/and teaching kids, but without so much pressure of a week long hardcore schedule. We did fun things to build group dynamics and personal strength.
Note: I need to get checked off to teach more science based classes, so I will be doing that soon.
Wednesday through Friday of last week 3 separate school groups came. All were private schools with a 6th-8th grade range. We (the group I had with my co-teacher) tried to teach survival skillz to 8th graders and it was very challenging to get them to hold their attention for any amount of time. They would listen for about 10 seconds then be gone like they'd never heard anything we said. 8th graders are the most challenging. Then the rest of the week we got to work with 6th graders who were really attentive, sweet, and super smart. They were impressive. Took them on a night hike and played night games, watched the stars, and had an all around good time. I encountered a kid who was high energy, very smart, and obviously annoyed the pants off of his classmates. But he was so great and it was interesting to meet a kid who I suspect might have a hard time getting through middle school and high school. To meet this boy from this perspective is an interesting one. I remember kids like him in elementary school or middle school and remember how (as a peer) I thought they were annoying and hard to deal with, but now as an adult and teacher I think he was the coolest kid outta that group. Perspective shifts are very cool. That night I was on the schedule to read a bedtime story to a tent of 7th grade girls (standard practice with boys/girls to help them get to sleep and stop thinking about bugs and scary outside things), so I did that and it was nice. It's amazing how scared all the kids are of bugs and nature.
For the weekend it was 1st Friday arts night in Chestertown, then we had a ladies night gathering at another staff housing in town called the "Swamp House". It is on the swamp :) That was a ton of fun to just hang out with friends and not have to do/worry about work stuff. Definitely a different dynamic. Went to the farmer's market on Saturday and almost went sailing Sunday, but there was no wind.
This week started yesterday with 4 school groups coming in with grades ranging from 5th-7th. I got to hang out yesterday with a sweet bunch of 7th graders. It's amazing how deep they could take concepts and articulate their thoughts on metaphors for life and things like that. And how well (compared to the 8th graders) they worked as a cohesive team and learned from mistakes and lessons of earlier in the day activities. One young girl told me I should be an inspirational speaker, which I took to mean that I inspired her. That was really cool. It's different when those words come from a kid.
Also, another funny thing that all groups i've had have been really interested in is if my real name is Sprout. I tell them "yes", but then they ask if my parents named me that and I don't want to lie so I say "no". Some stop there, but there have been a few kids who ask me what my parents named me and I say "that doesn't really matter, because now my name is Sprout" and with those time where a kid has inquired further they've had one of their classmates say something to the effect of "maybe it's not appropriate to be asking that" or "it's rude to ask about that". I'm fine with being asked what my real real name is, but it was interesting to see these young kids being so aware that they could see how inquiring further could be offensive in some way :D Hanging with kids is fun.
I have my morning off, which is why I'm writing this. Though I probably wont be updating as regularly as when I was on Lopez because the internetz here is very very very slow (it took 30 mins to load the picture in this post).
I hope everyone who is reading this is doing well in life, school, work, adventures, and other endeavors. Cheers to now!
Sprout Out!
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