Location: Henderson Elementary School
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2014; 9:50 am-12:00 pm
It had been exactly a year since
my last visit here. I had met Pat and
Brenna earlier in the week at a Chicago Cares event and they had mentioned that
things were a bit different, and the group now met in a cafeteria rather than a
classroom. So that's where I was
headed when I arrived at the school. As I entered the cafeteria, I saw that kids had already started assembling, including
a few that I recognized from last year. Some
of the other volunteers arrived, but there was still no sign of Brenna. I learned that all of them were here for
other projects and soon other Volunteer Leaders led them off and I was left
with the kids. One of the guards gave me
an attendance sheet for the students, just as Brenna arrived. And that was it. It would just be 2 of us today. Furthermore, the leader for 5th
grade wasn’t here, neither was anyone from Chicago Cares. So those kids would be joining us as well…in
fact, they were supposed to be "helping us".
When the 4th graders
learnt that the 5th graders would be helping, they were vehement in
their opposition for having them participate, though they were fine with a couple of
them! While they were protesting, the
5th graders were needling them. Oh boy.
This would be interesting. We started
with making name-tags and the kids were trying to make them as colorful as
possible. For ice breaker we said our
name and favorite thing to eat at Thanksgiving.
As expected Turkey was a common theme though some said Sweet potatoes
and pie, mashed potatoes etc. I said “Pumpkin Pie” leading to some saying
they hated it.
 |
| Not many pennies got cleaned |
Our first experiment was “pennies cleaning”. We had split into two tables, each with some
helpers, and I took one while Brenna was on the other. The 5th grader on our table was
having an argument with one of the younger kids – teasing her and I asked
Brenna to separate them. I was being the
disciplinarian, and had my hands full with two 4th grader boys who
were either playing, not listening, running around or fighting. One of the boys said that he has been here
since Kindergarten and so after all these years, this is his home and so he was
going to do as he pleased. The
experiment was to give everyone a small cup of vinegar, salt, some pennies to
dip in, and a bigger cup of water. As the pennies were dipped for 2 minutes in
vinegar/salt solution, they would be cleansed of the oxide coating on
them. After that, half of the pennies were to
be rinsed in water and the other half were not.
The ones that were not rinsed would start turning green. There was a lot of mayhem and it was a good
thing that Brenna had made them repeat key rules, which included no eating or
drinking of materials! During the
process water got spilled, tables got dirty etc. Some of the 4th graders were
really interested in learning and it was a shame that there was so much chaos. Also, the problem was that the experiment
didn't exactly go to plan, because none of the pennies turned green and so
there was very little science that anyone learnt.
Since this was getting a bit rowdy, Brenna gave the kids a
break and after a snack, she said that we were going to learn about
balance. She asked the kids to stand on
one leg and see how long they could do it.
Almost all of them participated and as expected, struggled to maintain
balance after a certain point. The idea
was to communicate how birds can do that and how center of gravity matters. She distributed 3 sets of cardboard pictures
to everyone, two with birds and one with clowns – though I failed to see the
connection between birds and clowns! The
kids were asked to color the pictures, cut them out, and try balance on their
fingers. There were to then tape pennies
to the birds and discover the center of gravity by balancing with the added
weight.
Kids love coloring and they all got to work, coloring their
birds in brilliant shades. Well, most of
them anyways. There was still a lot of
arguing and fighting going on and at one stage another Volunteer Leader came
and asked if we needed any help. This was
the last straw for Brenna and she scolded the kids saying that this had been a “bad day” because they had not paid
attention. She had a very good command
of the room and this quietened things a bit.
I chatted with some of the kids around me and two of them were helpers
from the 7th grade. One of
them was getting needled by a kid and it was getting ugly, though she was doing
a fantastic job of handling him. I asked
the girls what subjects they liked and they said that they liked Math and Science. I asked them what they wanted to be when they
grew up and one said a lawyer and the other a teacher. The coloring was going well and the kids were
now cutting the bird outlines and trying to balance them. We then added pennies where required and
Brenna made it into a game to check the maximum pennies that one could get on
the birds while maintaining balance.
It was getting towards the end of our session and the kids
lined up to leave. Brenna scolded them once
again for their behavior and ensured that they cleaned up before leaving. One guy who had given us a tough time stayed
back to help and kept asking if he could have extra things like granola bars,
pennies, pens – all of which Brenna refused.
But it seemed that he liked her and was genuinely interested in helping. Brenna and I left and she said that this isn't typical, and part of the problem was having the two grades together. I felt the same thing since most of the 4th
graders were interested in learning, but the older kids – except the two 7th
grade girls – kept distracting them. Brenna
mentioned that the next session was a special one before the winter break, with a
percussion performance for the kids. I
hope we get more volunteers for that one, though there will be no lack of sound
to drown out the screaming!
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