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.

Communication went very well this week.  I was sick on Thursday was unable to be on site.  The last time this happened, I emailed my mentors from my phone (since I took ill in the middle of the school day), and hours later I realized that the email was never sent, and was still in the process of being sent.  I was able to send a new message from my trusty laptop, along with an apology and explanation for the lateness of my email, and thankfully it was received well.  This time, however, I was not going to take any chances, and I sent an email from my phone and checked on my laptop to make sure that it had been sent at the proper time.  It had been sent immediately, and I had my reply within hours.

            I was asked to fall back slightly on direct interaction with the children for a brief interval on Tuesday, much like last week.  I was slightly surprised, but not as much as last week.  I suspect that, as the children get slowly more socially confident throughout the year, the supervisors will be taking slight steps back more and more.  It still is hard to resist going to the children and directly interacting with them if they appear insecure or upset, but in the interest of character-building, for both the children and myself, I have to get a tougher skin.

            I have said before that teamwork is a huge part of Kindering – everyone has to be on the same page so that the children do not receive mixed signals from the supervisors.  Next week, since I was not at this week’s meeting (meetings are on Thursdays, and I was ill), I am going to have to make sure that I know what happened during the meeting.

            Lastly, in problem-solving news, there is a new child in the classroom – he comes from the other classroom, and I am not quite sure why he was transferred (it seems to be a private matter).  We are going to have to work with the staff from the other classroom to learn as much as we can about him, since as of now, he does not seem to enjoy interacting with students or teachers.

            My goals are the same as last weeks – in fact, my short-term goals are now solidified, as the details of the deliverables of the semester project for the internship class have been released.  I must now get to work on the portfolio and presentation required.

This week was slightly trying – I had the beginnings of a migraine when I walked into the weekly meeting.  Thankfully, my mentors noticed that I was feeling unwell and excused me from the meeting, even allowing me to take a short nap in a makeshift bed that had been set up in the classroom for the unit “getting ready for bed.”  I know that it was dreadfully unprofessional of me, but it did allow me to nip the migraine in the bud and perform my usual duties in the classroom and at the administration.  Perhaps this can be categorized as job-specific skills – the ability to know when to power nap or take a break so that the rest of the day is only moderately uncomfortable, or perhaps the ability to take a nap in a non-bedroom setting?  I am aware that this does not fit into any category particularly well, but then again, rarely anything fits perfectly into any package, tied up with string.  I suppose the best we can do is approximate.

            Communication wasn’t exactly at a low point this week – more like a miss.  I found out this week that my administration-mentor’s work hours have changed by seeing her in the office on a Thursday, which used to be her day off.  While this will not drastically alter any of the workplace conditions, it still leaves a bit of a funny feeling to be surprised like this.  After writing this, I realize that it sounds far more dramatic than it should, but I don’t think it can be helped.

            As far as gracious professionalism goes, I don’t think I have yet had to be gracious about not performing a task, but there is always a first:  this week, I was, if not startled, mildly surprised when it was suggested that I not interact with the children for a while.  I had gotten caught up with a game that two of the more lively students were playing – pretending to be puppies – and I was enjoying tumbling about the motor room with them as much as they were.  However, while this in itself was not a problem, the specialists decided that since such an unusual outburst of social interactions among the students without prompting from the adults was taking place, we should all withdraw slightly and see how the situation played out.  I definitely saw the reason behind this decision, although I was a little disappointed that I could not continue.

            Lastly, there is a problem that needs to be solved – towards the end of each class, the children engage in group songs and activities known as “circle,” named for the semicircle in which the students sit at this time.  A large book filled with velcroed pieces of paper depicting different activities and songs is used at this time, with each piece of paper that is to be used at that time stuck to the outside of the book and displayed for all to see.  However, there is almost no organization within these books, so I hope to find some time to organize my class’s book to make circle time more efficient.

            My long term and short term goals have not changed from last week – I have been giving a green light by my mentors for my semester project!

I am so proud of the student I’m hoping to shadow!  When she first came to Kindering, she was very passive – she would obey what she could understand, and she would follow if she was lead, but she would not do much in the way of expressing preferences, speaking, or participating in a craft without much prompting on our part.  Now, however, she has starting leading the way herself, participating with her hands, and even speaking out loud (once even in full sentences!).  This may not be character development on my part, but I hope that I can be on hers, and that this is not just a temporary phase.

            There was one instance on Tuesday with this same girl – shall we call her Mary? – that prompted me to display a job-specific skill:  the ability to pick up and comfort a child.  At the Kindering center, volunteers are not usually allowed to pick up the children.  However, we were heading back from the motor room when another child, whose class passed us in the hallway, began crying.  Mary became frightened and immediately began crying as well.  One of the specialists told me that I could pick her up in order to calm her down.  I had comforted Mary before, on the day that she was first put in the body suit because she required comforting, but now I was being trusted to pick her up as well.  I’ve picked up many toddlers in the past, both to comfort them and to play with them, but this was the first instance of my doing so at Kindering.

            There’s a slight instance of problem solving that can be addressed, although it is nothing major – we need to find a new song.  My internship involves a lot of singing, but we haven’t yet found a song to sing when the parent’s come into the classroom at the end of the day.  We’ve ruled out “When the Parents Come Marching In,” but we can’t seem to think of anything else.  This is still a work in progress.

            Teamwork is, as always, a huge part of working at Kindering.  With most organized activities, one leader sits in the center of a semi-circle or behind a table, in front of the children.  While the leader leads the activities, it is up to the others, who sit behind the children, to ensure that the children participate.  The instances in which I have sat behind a child myself and participated in this teamwork and growing more frequent with every week, up to this point, where I even have a couple of children, Mary included, that I am consistently placed behind.

            As for goals, my long-term goal hasn’t changed.  As for short-term goals, I will ask tomorrow whether or not I can have approval for my journal from the internship office.