The Project According to Dan

I’ve decided to focus this update around what my role on the team was during this project.  Following my second-day, evening meltdown, I had a one-on-one meeting with Derek, as everyone else had the night before.  I felt compelled to explain to him my reservations about the project, namely that I had never really worked with kids before (although I did have the experience of once being a kid – some may argue I was born 40, but that’s a different topic), and that I wasn’t entirely sure what difference our team could make in two months.  Not to mention I was concerned that we would be lacking the one thing kids really need: consistency.  After two months, we’d be gone, and then what?  At the time we figured there would be another team following us, sure, but just when we were getting comfortable with the kids and (more importantly) they were getting comfortable with us, we’d be leaving.  He listened to me and told me that above everything else, kids just want attention and to be heard.  So, he asked that I just try and give them my focus when they were here and do what I could for them. 

I appreciated what he said, and while honest, valid and helpful, that was the only real training I would receive for the rest of the project.

There were a number of programs that we were asked to help facilitate at the club.  These programs were funded by grants that had been applied for and given to the club, so each of them had to be run.  My team paired off and was assigned at least one, maybe two, programs to be involved with.  I was teamed with Mike, and the two of us were put with a program called Passport to Manhood.  Control your laughter for just one moment, as it gets better.  So, P2M, as I came to abbreviate it, was designed for 11-14 year old boys, and led the group through activities and discussions that would focus on the various challenges of adolescence for boys.  These topics ranged from making responsible choices, to resolving conflicts with authority, to relationships with girls, to fatherhood.  Again, my only training for this program came from a teacher’s manual that had handouts and activities for each topic.  That and the fact that I seem to have navigated adolescence more or less successfully.   And, it needs to be said that there were few 11 – 14 year olds actually within the program.  The average age of kids in the class were 8-10. 

(As a side note, I was also put in charge of preparing an ACT Prep program for high schoolers.  I prepared a handout of strategies for answering ACT questions, practice tests for the different subjects, and fliers to promote this program in the schools.  I was told to have things on hand if anyone asked, because this was going to be a “upon request” type of program.  I never once had anyone ask for help preparing for the ACT.  By the end of the project, I had forgotten about it completely.  So, this will be the last time I bring it up.)

The first day of P2M, Mike and I watched one of the two regular staff members, Jordan (who is Chick’s grandson), run the program.  But this to him was asking the boys if they thought Carmello Anthony would ever do drugs (to which all children, unless they are trying to be “funny,” will answer no) then letting them play flag football.  We were both puzzled by this lax attitude toward the program, when it had been stressed to us that these programs needed to be run fully and completely – especially since they had been given thousands of dollars in grant money to run it.

When Mike and I were finally able to look at the manual, we were shocked to see what the lesson was supposed to be.  It had nothing to do with drugs, but about making good choices.  Somewhere the message got mixed along the way.  We asked Jordan how he prepared for each session, twice a week, he said he didn’t really.  He looked through the book 15 minutes beforehand, made up a few questions, then let the boys go to rec. 

So, there we were, being teamed up in a program that wasn’t actually being run. 

Mike and I had no choice but to jump in right away.  I don’t want to make it seem like we felt we had to undermine Jordan, or that we felt compelled to save the program, but it was apparent that Jordan wasn’t going to run the program the way it was meant to be run.  And all of my team had been told that part of the reason for falling enrollment rates were staff-related issues.  So, even by preparing at a minimal level, an hour a week, it was inevitable that we were going to take control of the program away from Jordan.  We attempted to discuss our preparation plans with him and get him on board, but it was clear that he was content to let us take over.  So we did.

We prepared a “Code of Conduct” for the boys to develop as the program advanced.  At the end of each week, they would come up with a new code to live by based upon the lessons of the week.  For the most part they were really good at doing this, and over the course of the project we developed a code that even I would be proud to live by.  But the boys were hesitant to participate every step of the way.  First, they were just too young for some of the material.  We had to water down all the discussions so that a 9 year old would be able to understand and willing to discuss topics like how cigarette and alcohol ads try to manipulate a person into buying their products.  Second, they had been conditioned to believe that every program at the club was rec.  Each day, before starting, we would be asked in the pleading manner of children if today we’d be going into the gym.  Some of the younger boys, one in particular, named Talon, told me point blank that he did think we should talk about the “drugs and alcohol stuff,” and that the boys would be happier if we went and played football.  Or kickball.  Or jump rope.  Anything to keep from actually having to go through our program. 

When we talked to Derek about the difficulties we were facing, he encouraged us to just keep doing what we were doing.  Eventually something would break.  Well, something did break, when the last two weeks we were there, we had more outbursts from restless boys than ever before.  It got to the point where we had to begin threatening to take away rec time if only to get the boys to listen.  So, in the end, I became the disciplinarian teacher with a subject that no one wanted to listen to. 

Or at least that’s how it felt by the end.  I don’t blame the boys in the club.  Again, they were too young for some of the material and activities, and they were just being boys at their age.  I feel like I wasn’t as creative as I needed to be to get the success that I had hoped for.  While there were some major moments of pride for me, like when we had a lengthy and mature discussion on why men should respect women, and that by the end, the boys were no longer asking right off if we were having gym instead of P2M, more often than not, it felt like I was beating my head against a brick wall.  I never really knew what that expression felt like before this project.  Now I do.  And I have much more respect for people who willingly go into these careers and do make strides teaching children.  Or I think they are that much crazier, I haven’t really decided.

I need to make it clear that I am venting right now.  90% of the time, I was not ready to walk away from this program, but I wanted to emphasize the challenges that I faced during the two months there.

Because as tough as I had it sometimes and as frustrating as it was to successfully complete my program, compared to some of my teammates, I was lucky.