I just learned this week that my internship will end on June 5^th – that’s insane!  I cannot believe how strange it feels knowing that in 18 days, I will no longer be a part of the Stepping Stones team or the songbird of the FRC department.  On a side note, Wendy and the rest of the team are ordering pizza for both me and another intern for our last days!

            I had to write that on the notepad, the only way of communicating with Felise that I have nowadays.  I don’t like it at all, but I don’t suppose I have any other way.  Email seems almost impersonal.  Anyway, she is coming back from Korea on Monday, so she should be reading my updates while I’m putting these in the mailbox marked “Astor.”  I do hope I get to see her in person before I leave.

            The twins are sick again this week – nothing serious, just congestion – so I’ve been working more and more with the boy whose language skills have been developing very rapidly lately.  We all have been working on filling in each other’s’ gaps in the Spanish language, and our teamwork does seem to be paying off.  This boy’s mother has reported that he is responding verbally to her all the time nowadays rather than just pointing or glancing like he was doing just one month ago.  It’s amazing have quickly he’s picked these skills up.

            I made the Welcome packets this week – 4 hours’ worth of them.  Gracious professionalism once again (although I did get to sit in a chair while the copier was going for quite some time, which was nice, even if I did manage to cover the entire counter in the resource room with copies, files, and staples.)  I really am glad that I got those done, though, since we had just run out of them.

            Speaking of packets, I actually consider the cancellation of class on Thursday to be a blessing when it comes to time management – making Welcome packets is so time consuming that with the amount of time that I usually have left after all of my other duties, I would scarcely have time to set up the whole process before having to put it all away again.  Having such a huge chunk of time worked very well, in this case.

            My goal for next week is to make sure that the twins have not regressed much in the time they have been gone (that is quite common when the kids go on vacation or get sick for extended periods of time).  As for long-term goals, a measurable mark of long-term effects my internship is having on these kids is social blossoming of the student with social anxiety – we’ve all been working on getting her to open up and speak (audibly, if at all), and in the last few months (and especially last week) we’ve been seeing our efforts being paid off.

            I have been writing to Felise every day I am in the office – nowadays, we communicate through a notebook on her desk, since she is at the Bothell location on the days I am in.  However, she has been in South Korea for the past few weeks, so I have been writing all of my daily updates on that notepad.  It’s a bit odd, writing update after update with no reply, but she’ll be home in another week, and I’ll get to read all about her trip!

            The twins have been sick this week – poor kids.  However, I spent my time in class working with a kid whose language skills have just started developing at an astonishing pace this past month.  He hears both Spanish and English at home, that that is definitely reflecting in his speech patterns in class as well.  Because of this, we must use teamwork – our classroom leader (Wendy) does not speak Spanish, and the rest of us only have high school-level proficiency, so we must all fill in each other blanks to understand what he is trying to say.  Also – very funny – he knows exactly where the power lies in the classroom.  I have to struggle with him, physically and mentally, to have him do something he doesn’t want to do, but he listens to all of the adults – especially Wendy!

            I also learned today that there will be no class next week Thursday, which means that I will be filing and creating Welcome packets again for four hours.  Not the most stimulating work, I can assure you, but it must be done, and it makes everything  and I suppose it is all part of gracious professionalism.  I do wish it was easier on the feet, though.  There is a lot of running around involved.

            Lastly, we had some problem-solving to do, since one of the girls was afraid of the toy snakes.  We had to do a whole routine of hitting the snake on the ground and pretending to give it kisses to get her to even come near it.  Thankfully, we didn’t have to do it for too long, and she eventually was able to hold one of the snakes in her hand without any anxiety.

            My goal for next week is to get through making all of those Welcome packets that Felise left for me – I want to get her whole list of things to do done before she gets back.  As for long-term goals, an example of a way of measuring long-term effects that my internship has on these kids is the increase in language abilities in the one child I wrote about above as a result of the combined efforts of the team (his speech patterns also reflect the phrases and sounds we often use for the children to learn to imitate and associate with certain activities or objects).

Just when we got an enthusiastic, happy boy to join the class and be the ideal companion for our first enthusiastic, happy boy, the first one turns three and leaves.

            It was all so perfect!

            So, it looks like we’re right back to problem-solving.  Luckily, we just got a new kid in class who seems like he has the social potential to be a great foil to the other new kid – of course, no kid is ever completely comfortable and happy on their first day, but after a few days, we might try putting these two new boys together.

            Gracious professionalism came up again – my work with the twin girl is going splendidly, but for a while on Thursday it was starting to look like she was getting a bit too attached.  She would not willingly go to any of the specialists and kept running back to me and making sure that I was near her as much as possible.  I agreed with the therapists that perhaps she should stay with some of the other teachers for part of the class, and it seemed to work for a while, until she came running back. I suppose now I probably should start making sure she spends time with the other specialists, but I can’t say I won’t be disappointed to not be able to work with her as often.  I love working with ALL of the kids, but I’m starting to think that the attachment the twin girl has goes both ways.

            In other news, I was very surprised to hear that one of the TA’s, and one of the nicest people at Kindering, is leaving!  She is moving to Eastern Washington, just a couple months after she joined!  I don’t know how I missed this information, but however it happened, it looks like my streak of lovely communication has been destroyed.

            Lastly, I think I’m getting sick again – not a stomach sickness, but a good, old-fashioned cold.  If I have to miss more days on site, my time-management is going to be severely thrown off, since Felise is going to Korea for the next few weeks.  At this point, I really couldn’t be more exasperated at my immune system, but there we have it.  If I’m going to be sick again, at least I can be thankful that it probably won’t last through my AP tests – I hope…

            My goal for this week is to take care of myself so that I miss as little work as possible!  And, of course, my long-term goal is to make a difference in these kids’ live in whatever way I can.

“Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!”

            So sang Motel, the tailor, on the day he became engaged to Tzeitel, from Fiddler on the Roof.  I haven’t gotten engaged (for heaven’s sake, I’m still underage!) BUT some of the problems we were having look like they are going to be healing themselves!  Well, we still need to do some work solving them, but, things have definitely taken a turn for the better.  Last week, we were worrying about one very enthusiastic kid who managed to scare off the other children.  Well, the new child in our class (I wrote about him last week as well) LOVES it!  Those two were chasing each other around and playing with each other and not scaring each other off!  It is still a very good idea for them both to learn some boundaries and body language, but now they both have someone who is at their social level to interact with!  It’s amazing that that happened right when we needed it!  We will be monitoring their interaction, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

            Big step in gracious professionalism on Thursday – I had stayed up ridiculously late on Wednesday night to finish some homework.  As a result, I was equally as ridiculously tired on Thursday.  I had to concentrate on every word that was spoken during the meeting to keep myself from falling asleep, but I had a commitment, and I had already missed far too many days at my internship because of my weak stomach, and I stayed.  I was uncomfortable, but I kept my commitment.

            One thing that did make me feel better on Thursday was my interaction with the twin boy.  Wendy had him in her lap and instructed me to sit a few feet in front of them and roll the ball to him.  He would grab the ball and roll it back (and in the process whacking Wendy in the face every time he lifted the ball over his head to generate the power to send it back my way!).  We continued this over and over again, and it was so uplifting to see the boy smiling and throwing a ball almost like other boys his age because of our teamwork.

At this point, I was sitting near the end of the slide in the motor room.  When Wendy took the twin boy away, I looked up to see his sister perched at the top of the slide.  She caught my gaze and slid down, then ran to me and gave me a big hug and proceeded to lead me around the room, passing balls back and forth and pushing carts around.  I suppose that at that moment, I understood how far I had come since the beginning of the year that I was able to work with this girl, and how much more I could learn.  If I were in a book or a movie, some literary analyst would say that this was a “turning point,” or at least a “defining moment” for my character, I think.  I love working with these kids more than I can ever write, and I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to form a bond with the twin girl.

My goals now are to see what I can learn from the interactions between the two sociable boys and the twin girl, and (long term) to make a lasting difference in these children’s lives, if I can.

I can’t believe I got sick again.

            By now I’m sure you’ve noticed that I catch stomach bugs very easily.  That is actually true of my whole family – two years, ago, we all had Norrovirus, and ended up just giving it to each other again and again for almost two months.  So, I got sick again, and had to miss Thursday.  And right before Spring Break too!

            Ugh.

            All of this keeps making trouble for my time management.  Although I always make up for the work that I have missed, it does make the stress a little heightened on the days that I do it.  I don’t suppose there really is any way to stop myself from getting sick, aside from the obvious – good hygiene and diet, lots of rest, etc. – but it is still rather frustrating.

            On the other hand, it seems as if the twin girl is doing very well – she entered the castle-fort in the motor room today without requiring me to come with her, although she did glare suspiciously at another student when he tried to follow, and marched right back out to where I was.  I went in with her, but I was very glad that I was able to see her changing limits.  One of the specialists complimented me on my handling of the various situations that arise around this one girl – I suppose this can fall under job-specific skills, although it has been a much more gradual process that many other skills that I have written about in the past.

            I also learned today that we are going to have another student entering the class after Spring Break – another Indian boy, and by the sound of his name, his parents are from Central India, most likely Western.  Because of this, I might be able to understand some of what he says, and figure out some of his speech patterns (as these are very indicative of thought processes, and it is VERY beneficial to know what is going through the kid’s head).  Then again, he might be raised with a language I have never heard before, or he might even speak only English, or have very little language at all.  If I am able to interpret some of what he says, however, I will be able to play my part in teamwork, so that the specialists can pick up on these patterns, as they most definitely would know better what to do than I.

            Lastly, we’ve got some problem-solving to do.  One of the kids is very open and social – however, in a class full of parallel-players, his advances mostly frighten the other children, and he cannot read their body language and chases after them when they run away.  We think that creating a “social group” (or a class of sorts full of kids meant specifically to expand their social skills) might help him understand the other children’s boundaries, but we don’t have enough kids to work with who we think will thrive in a social group to form one.

            So, for this week:  my short term goals are to help figure out how to deal with the sociable child’s enthusiasm that so sadly goes unreciprocated by the other students and to keep up my work with the twin girl.  My long-term goals, again, are to make a permanent difference in these kids’ lives in what ways I can.

Communication is still going well – I was unable to come to my internship on Thursday, since I had an orchestra competition.  However, I was able to notify my mentors plenty ahead of time, so there was no confusion or chaos due to my absence.  Also, the letter-writing to Felise, who supervises my paperwork projects, is going swimmingly.  She writes about her son’s new words (such as “no”), her experiences at the Bothell location, and any new projects she wants me to tackle. 

            My work with the twin girl today went even better than last week!  We had to use some problem solving this week when working with her – we are trying to break her out of dependence upon the comfort of holding our hands at all times.  Whenever she tried to grab my hand and lead me to another toy, I instead was told to walk directly behind her – so closely that she could even see my feet in her peripheral vision if she turned her head slight from facing forward.  Every time she paused, I would say “I’m right behind you!”  She appears to understand nearly everything we say, as she follows directions and makes choices when offered.  However, it truly was the most gratifying when she ran about the motor room, shrieking with laughter and actually interacting on some level with the other kids.  (I was also told again today that I did a good job with her!)

            I usually am not upset about examples of teamwork – I suppose “upset” is the wrong word.  The twin girl and I were forming a great relationship and she was connecting to me very well – however, we had to be mindful of my impending absence because of the competition, so I had to give the care of the twin girl over to one of the specialists towards the end of the class, so that we could ensure that she would be able to work with the other specialists.  I did not want to leave her in the middle of class after all of the progress we had been making, but I did understand why it had to be done.  This could be categorized as gracious professionalism, although a different kind than I have previously employed – this involved giving up a rewarding job, rather than taking up a tedious job.

            This week, I had to write two very detailed reports on the kids – I usually only write one report each day, so this was a bit of a time crunch.  I suppose this falls under time management, although there really wasn’t a way to make writing the reports more efficient, as they were so detailed.  I ended up writing everything as fast as possible without making the notes illegible, and gave myself writer’s cramp. 

            My goals for next week are to once again spend as much time as possible learning about the twin girl’s abilities – my long-term goals are still to make a permanent difference in the lives of these children in what ways I can.

I cannot believe what a wonderful week this was!

We had a little problem solving to do at this week’s meeting – we cannot understand why one of the new twins (the girl) is so easily upset.  Even worse, once she has had one tantrum, she never truly returns to her original state of calm, and instead becomes more and more vulnerable with each following tantrum.  We do know that if we stay near her, we are able to quell the tantrums as soon as we see them beginning, thus preventing the next five or six tantrums as well and enabling us to do more constructive work with her.  We devised a system in which we take turns monitoring her progress – and my turn went WONDERFULLY! I was able to observe several trends in her speech and behavior, and she did not have a single tantrum!  It was incredibly gratifying – and to put the cherry on top, Ms. Olsen stopped by Felise’s desk (where I write my reports) after class and told me that I had done a great job.

            The child with separation anxiety is doing far, far better now.  She barely whimpers when she enters class, and the rest of the time she bounces and smiles and sings at the top of her lungs.  We did have to employ teamwork at one point, when she had an “accident” – I am not qualified to work directly with the children in this situation, but while one of us cleaned the child up, another person had to speak to the child’s mother, who had come back into the classroom (we still don’t want to risk another onslaught of separation anxiety), and one of us had to clean up the mess.  I suppose this counts as gracious professionalism as well, since I was the one who was closest to the accident site at the time, and I ended up cleaning up the mess.  I didn’t mind very much (and thank goodness, the accident occurred over a rubber mat!) but I definitely would have preferred making more observations on the other children.

            EEEEEEE!

            While I’m at it, I should mention that one of the more socially anxious, generally silent children is becoming quite a chatterbox!  She is using full sentences and giving direct and AUDIBLE answers!  Excuse me while I go dance the conga.

            Time management went up this week as well – I was given a the task of assembling welcome packets for the front desk.  This involves copying hundreds of papers, cutting fifty or so flyers, making hundreds of packets, and sorting them into different folders for delivery.  Thankfully, I was allowed to use the common space in the supply room and was thus able to line the packets up, once they were assembled and stapled, so that I could sort them into their respective folders faster than usual.

            My short-term goal for next week is to learn all I can about the twin girl who has be puzzling us so much lately – my long-term goals of making a permanent difference in these children’s lives in what little ways I can has not changed.

Written 1/31/14:

            My goodness!  SIXTEENTH JOURNAL!  I’ve been at Kindering for four months, and I couldn’t love it more – even while I am doing nonstop paperwork sorting.  However, I did have a minor communication slip-up this week.  There is a woman with Down Syndrome who helps out in our classroom – however, this week, the class took a field trip to the Wiggle Works on Thursday, and we had all forgotten to tell her, since she does not attend the team meetings.  She always has an amazing attitude and was not too upset about it, but she still was able to have her fun pretending to be upset.  However, she had nothing to do for hours afterwards, since her ride could not come to pick her up for a while.  At the time, we jokingly passed it off as empty-headedness due to excitement over the Seahawks going to the Superbowl (and there was quite a bit of Seahawks Spirit in the office that day) but we all did feel quite guilty at this fail in communication.

            Speaking of field trips…yes – I was filing paperwork BOTH days this week!  When I first heard about the field trip a few weeks ago, I was less than thrilled, for this very reason.  However, in the spirit of gracious professionalism, I have chosen to be happy that the kids get a day at Wiggle Works and that I have a chance to make the opening of the new Kindering location run a bit more smoothly by taking on the jobs that the employees are too busy to do at this time.  However, I am glad to report that I will be coming back to my classroom in a few weeks, since a pair of twins is joining the class!

            Time management…well…I decided that, as long as I was going to stick to my policy of gracious professionalism regarding the paperwork sorting, I might as well, be as efficient as possible and do as much as I can to.  I am pleased to announce that my time management skills have reach a new high – in the four hours of organizing and filing medical progress reports, I sorted through ALL of the necessary papers from A to S (by the way, there are a LOT of S’s…but I suppose I can’t complain without feeling slightly guilty, since my own last name begins with an S – teehee!)!  My moment of triumph of the week, I suppose.

            Lastly, this may be more in the way of “character realization” than character development, but Felise’s husband brought in her 18-month-old son to the office on Thursday for a few minutes...and he is ADORABLE (the son, I mean)!  I could barely look away from him the whole fifteen minutes they were there, and it made me realize just how much I love working with the kids, and how much I have missed them – yet another reason for me to be glad about the incoming twins!

            My goals, short term and long term, as are they were last week, only now I need the patience to wait a few more weeks to rejoin the classroom and the ability to contain my happiness at the thought of going back!

Written 1/24/14:

I (along with several members of my classroom’s team) were out sick with a stomach bug this week – since Kindering is based on direct interactions with the children, we are not allowed to come in when we are ill, due to the kids’ delicate immune systems.  Unfortunately, I missed both days of my internship, but I hope to be back next week with even more enthusiasm than before.

            Unfortunately, that is all I can say from this update, except that my short-term and long-term goals have not changed from what they were last week.

Written 1/17/14:

As it turns out, the class size has gotten so small that it looks like I will be spending my four hours of internship on Tuesdays upstairs, filing and organizing.  Once again, I’m striving to become more graciously professional, but four hours of filing paperwork in one sitting isn’t exactly a party.  However, I am still excited every day to go to Kindering and work with everyone there – in fact, I am now able to see more of Felise, my supervisor in this area and one of the sweetest people on the planet!

            The team meeting on Thursday has most definitely increased my perception of the teamwork that goes on at Kindering – I knew before that the specialists all must work together to help the children progress in their respective areas, but this time, I saw them making a full plan that they would each implement part of in the future when they had their individual home visits with the child in questions (ex:  “so I will do ___so that when you go next week, ___ will happen” “and then I will do ___ so that when it is your turn again, you can ___”).  I am definitely glad that I was able to see this sort of collaboration in action, instead of hearing about it secondhand during the meetings like I usually do (ex:  “so, how did our plan to ___ go during home visits?”).

            As I have said before, I have been getting far more time-efficient when filing paperwork.  However, my source of pride this week was the creation of a filing device that will help me sort loose papers in half the time – made out of an old wire frame, some hanging folders, and a LOT of rubber bands!  This isn’t so much a job-specific skill as it is a skill that can be useful ANYWHERE – a form of career readiness, I imagine.  I love making things out of unlikely objects, and I have recently discovered Kindering’s treasure trove of broken and discarded organization tools – perhaps, if I do keep sorting paperwork every Tuesday for a while, I might tinker with a few of them!

            However, speaking of job-specific skills, I did manage to fix the paper cutter after I had badly jammed it when I tried to cut too many folders down to size at once.  I am glad that I have acquired some practical, working-with-my-hands skills in my time here – I do believe that such simple job-specific skills as these are underrated nowadays.  If nobody could fix a jammed paper-cutter, where would we be?  Not in a good place, that’s for sure!  While this might seem like a small accomplishment, I am glad to have acquired another tool for my metaphorical belt.

            My goals for this week are just as they were last week, with one minor change – to acquire the patience I need to wait for more children to join, so that I can go back to the part of the job that excites me most – working directly with the kids!

WHEW!  Sorry it has taken so long to update!  What with college apps and semester finals, it has been one hectic month!  I will be posting the last four (yes, four...feel free to throw rocks) journals I have written about my work on site momentarily!

Written 1/10/14:

This Tuesday, I was a little upset that the class size has gotten so small in our classroom – since there were far too many adults and specialists in the room to cope with four or five children, I was sent up to do paperwork for the remainder of the day.  This was actually oddly relaxing for a while, perhaps because I was so tired that day.  However, after the third hour of sorting papers, things did get a little boring.  However, I know that this is a very important job, and with Kindering’s new location opening (!), they need all the help they can get.  I suppose this can count as gracious professionalism, even though I was slightly reluctant to do the job (I know that it was recommended that we voice our concerns in such situations, but I really don’t think it is necessary – I’m pretty sure that everyone understands that paperwork is a tedious task, and it doesn’t seem like they want me to stay with this task indefinitely).

            Speaking of paperwork, however, I am getting far more efficient – time management if I ever saw it (although, I admit…I display time management skills very rarely).  I am definitely much faster when it comes to organization and filing, and I am glad that my internship has helped my efficiency, as it may definitely come in handy in the future.

            This week’s communication, however, was a bit off – I had forgotten to tell Felise that we were completely out of yellow folders (used for special education, social work, and feeding therapy reports) last week, so I spent about an hour on Tuesday cutting yellow folders.  It was remarkably therapeutic, but it also wasted valuable time.

            Lastly, I know I have said this before, but in character-development news, I really must develop a thicker skin…one of the kids was crying again on Thursday, and we’re trying to get him to learn how to self-soothe – but it’s so difficult for me to listen to him crying and crying.  I practically had to chain myself to the art table (well, not that drastic) to keep myself from destroying the team’s hard work and what progress they had made with this child already.

            My goals are pretty much the same as they ever were – continue tracking “Mary’s” progress, while working with all the children under the direction of the specialists to make a difference in their lives in what ways I can.