INTERNSHIP
I am currently doing an internship with the Seed to Table program at the Boys and Girls Club. On Tuesdays, I help the teacher prepare the lesson for the day, photo-record the plants in the garden, organize the online photo library for all the other classes, and help teach and supervise a group of 10 kids in their class. I work for about 1 hour and 45 minutes every week.
WEEKLY LOGS
Tuesday, Jan 19th
Today I dug in the mud with a bunch of third graders. Was I expecting this to be a glamorous internship? I didn’t really think about it but now that I have faced the inner demon that is within every young elementary school student when faced with pitchforks and a pit full of mud, I now know the answer to that. My job for the day was to take a group of 4-5 kids to the various planter boxes and aerate the soil. It had just rained quite heavily this morning, and water was pooling on the surface of the soil. To loosen it up, myself and the feisty beings had to take aerators or pitchforks to make sure the water drained. “Look! It’s chocolate milk!” one remarked to me, sloshing around in the muddy water. I was groaning internally, but kept the enthusiasm high as I took them from bed to bed, helping them twist in the pitchforks because they are too small to handle such big weapons. All I had to do was keep them occupied, and that’s what I did. One kid told me he was having fun, and boy was that a sigh of relief for me. One girl held up the pitchfork and yelled, “Riot!” I glanced at the time and noticed it was time for English class. “Do they know what they’re doing?” My supervisor, Gretchen, asked as I left with my compadre, Clare. “I sure hope so,” I responded. My job here was done. For the day, at least.
Monday, Jan 25th
After last week’s whirlwind of third grade mayhem, I thought maybe the seventh grade class would be a breath of fresh air. Indeed, they were calmer, but also less willing to participate. Especially since my job was to take a group of them to weed and pick up trash for about an hour. As the teacher’s helper, I had to try to stay enthused. It’s harder than it looks when picking up Hi-Chew wrappers and empty Smirnoff bottles from among the native plants. Also, these kids do not give a dang. Honestly, I would not either if I were them. They kept wandering off and I felt like a loser telling them to go back and pick up more trash/weeds. By the end they, and myself, had given up and we talked about school things and our pets. I learned that this class (Seed to Table) does not have a lot of strict structure, and all the kids just goof off and nothing is done about it. It makes me frustrated because it has been like this since before I was interning, so slacking off is already ingrained in their minds as being okay. Honestly, I try my best, but there’s only so much I can do.
After the class, I washed dishes in the Boys and Girls Club with my compadres Clare and Justin. I love doing chores like this, it makes me feel so invigorated. In case you were wondering, yes, that is sarcasm. At this point I am now wondering what I am going to get out of this internship, besides getting exercise running around trying to control children who, quite frankly, are out of their minds.
Tuesday, Jan 26th
One of the jobs that I have been taking on is monitoring the different plant beds and taking pictures of the things growing in them, then taking notes such as, “Kale looks bigger than last week”. The whole garden is a pretty big mishmash of lots of different types of lettuce/kale, some garlic, an unnecessarily large quantity of fava beans, dead marigolds, and dead looking strawberries. I take photos with the garden tablet, which has subpar camera quality that instantly uploads to a google folder. The kids are allowed to take the tablet out during class, but that usually results in them taking photos of each other and checking their juvenile instagrams.
During the class (back to the third graders), they had to hone in their observation skills. I helped them in an activity to find and count certain types of plants in the garden. That entertained them for a while, at least. I had to leave for English after that. I was saved by the bell, as they say.
Tuesday, Feb 2nd
Today was the most frustrating day yet. The ignorance of children just plain baffles me. There I was, attempting to instruct them on how to plant some seeds and it was like I did not even exist. They were (and, mind you, this was just a group of five boys) nonstop talking, obsessed with the ideas of evolution. One believed that, after the dinosaurs went extinct, five survived and that’s where everything evolved from. Another believed that humans would eventually devolve into rocks and was thereafter obsessed with picking up small rocks and saying, “Look! A human!” Finally, after much persistence, I was able to get (some of) them to plant some seeds that were apparently expired. I guess we’ll see if all my efforts were worth it if they ever sprout. I snagged my only pair of black jeans on some grate, so that was also a plus of the day. Then the kids were let loose to plant some more fava beans. Not that the garden needs any more of those. I also got to laminate something for the first time (a lifelong dream of mine), but I messed it up a little. Not even that could go right. I was mad and left for English very irritated.
Tuesday, Feb 9th
So…today was actually sort of terrifying. Clare joined me today and as a team, we had to literally spray thousands of aphids off of a ton of kale. It kind of disturbs me that the kale got so bad in the first place (don’t look at me, I am not in charge of taking care of the garden), but there we were in the kitchen, using the power faucet to eradicate them. Gretchen was like, “is this too gross?” and I’m like “Oh no, it’s not” but honestly!! I was highly disturbed. They were going to eat that kale for class later.
Later on in class, it was a watering day. It was unusually hot and all the kids were whining and not listening as usual. They watered all the wrong plants unsurprisingly. Meanwhile, I was taking some willing kids aside for some interview questions. I was totally unprepared and had no freaking idea what to ask, so that was basically public embarrassment. Only three of the kids wanted to be interviewed which is great on my part (sarcasm), since that’s my whole job. I’m supposed to maybe make a little info video about what the program is all about and some comments from the kids. Also, that subpar tablet was my filming device. I am a film snob, it was pretty bad. I am dreading trying that whole thing again. I need to think of a better approach to making a video. And I wish I had more warning instead of showing up and being told to interview people. Like! I don’t know what to do in that scenario besides wing it (and end up failing horribly). I am scared about going back. Kids overwhelm me in large quantities. I can barely even handle kids my own age! I like working with people in theory, I think, but I’d rather work alone most of the time. I thought practice with being social would help but man…I’m enjoying the silence in which I am sitting right now.
Tuesday, Feb 16th
I mentioned before that I (finally) got to laminate something. Ever since I was in elementary school, I always thought laminating was fascinating. Well, dreams do come true, and sometimes in a big way. For almost a whole hour, I got to laminate copies of seed packets, front and back, to use as labels out in the garden. I crouched on the floor of the CLCS office feeding plastic sheets into the laminating machine (no space on the overcrowded tables) and cutting them up. I'm not complaining; it was a pretty satisfying job. But what am I getting out of this? That's a good question.
In the second portion of the day, it was time for seed-planting. Third graders aren't bad at planting seeds, but they aren't good either. Especially since they'd rather be doing literally anything else. Since it's springtime, there's a lot of seeds to be planted. Makes since because the garden right now is pretty ugly. It has been winter, after all.
Tuesday, Feb 23rd
I need to be keeping up with my logs because every week is blurring into one and I can't remember what I did. I guess nothing I did was very stand out-ish...yes, that's it. Nothing I do feels very important and everything is redundant, so I don't really remember it anymore. Or maybe it's because I'm starting to block it all from my memory. That could also be a contributing factor.
What I DO remember is planting more seeds. It was chaos again. It was actually kind of satisfying because the kids that were assigned to my group were like, "yay!" As a volunteer (or just as a person in general), I can't tell you how satisfying that is. They kind of respect me, that's cool. It's the kind of respect where they want to hang out with you and not listen when you tell them to put down the shovel that doubles as a jagged knife that they're pointing at you. That's the kind of chaos I'm talking about. What a great group of kids. I told the kid with said knife shovel he could have it back when he behaved himself, and he took that seriously. But of course, I couldn't give it back to him. As I was running off to English, he yelled out, "Can I have the knife back?" and I'm like, "No!" It's hard to make promises when you can't keep them. Life lesson of the day.
Tuesday, March 1st
Apparently the class I've been helping out with switches kids halfway through, which is kind of sad in a way. I feel like they were just starting to respect me. The job for the day was shoveling mulch (a ton of wood chips) into one of the big beds with ugly branchy things "growing" in it. They took the job pretty seriously and had a good time filling up buckets with the mulch and pouring it into the beds. It was amusing to watch them attempt the get big shovelfuls. It was pitiful. They were like, "how did you do that??" when I filled up a bucket in just a few seconds. I told them I have super strength. Do kids really believe that stuff? At least it puts some sort of doubt into their minds. It's good for them.
When it was time to switch the groups of kids from myself to Gretchen, my group was very reluctant to cease shoveling. Secretly I was pleased they'd rather stay in my group. After the second group had the time of their lives as well, they were even reluctant to go eat food if it meant they had to stop their current job. Shoveling mulch over eating?? I will never understand the priorities of children. Anyways, they were sad when they found out their last day meant they wouldn't see me again. I did point out we went to school on the same campus. They seemed baffled at that...
Tuesday, March 8th
You know, it's interesting the kinds of things I hear in the CLCS office. I'm not always in the garden; sometimes I have to work on the computer to sort photos or make laminations. So anyways, I was absolutely not eavesdropping and I heard somebody walk in and express their concern about something (I feel like I shouldn't go into specifics here because it's about certain people) and the responses and comments made were just so appalling and incredibly NOT politically correct. I can't believe these people work in our office. It's kind of disturbing. I guess that's one insight I get from working in there: getting to know what the people who run our school are really like (and this isn't the first talk of a similar kind I have heard).
Today I also made part of a pea trellis. Oh, the thrilling things I do in life. There was also a fresh set of third graders for the class. I prayed that they would not be as rowdy as the last bunch, but alas it was in vain. There is only one girl that is calm to a point where she stands off to the side and does nothing so I had to deliberately call her in to participate. We were planting seeds again, and we planted some peppers because they wanted something they could eat. Turns out the pepper seeds were not supposed to be in the pile of choices. I also planted some zinnias with the other group. Hopefully the garden will be spruced up with some lovely flowers. It won't be overrun with lettuce and fava beans.
FINAL REFLECTION
When I started this internship, I had no idea what to expect because there was actually no job description. It was just "helping with classes in the garden". Since I was so desperate to get an internship, I just paid attention to the fact I could do it during school, it was literally a step away, and some classmates who had done the same internship the semester before said it was a breeze. That was good enough for me. After the first day, I realized what exactly I was in for; working in the mud while desperately trying to handle ten hyperactive kids from Nea. Skill-wise, I knew that would require some kid-wrangling tactics and the ability to be patient with them in times of desperation. One particular time I had to lead a game of Simon Says. Now, when every kid participating is a maniac, things were bound to get out of hand. I had to think carefully about how I had to use my skills to make the game as efficient as possible. And so, when all the kids were buzzing around like bees, I said, "Simon Says to go back to the fence and stand quietly in a line", and being susceptible, they automatically did as they were told because they thought it was part of the game. Gretchen looked impressed and I'm like yeah, that's right, I just did that. So that was an obstacle that I overcame; controlling the beasts. I learned that I really do not want to work with children when I am older. Maybe if they are calm, but seriously it even made me question the idea of personally having kids at all. That's how frustrating it was at times. The days that were the calmest were the ones when they were digging in the dirt. I don't understand their priorities. So anyways, at the end of the day, it was an interesting experience but next time I would like to get paid to do work.