My name is Thomas Wheeler and I am a senior at Canisius College with a Psychology major, and School Psychology minor. For my practicum I decided that I would volunteer with the Buffalo Prep program. The Buffalo Prep program enrolls minority seventh graders (who are in the top of their respective classes) with the goal of providing the resources necessary for the students to attend a private High School. I choose this program because I had gone through the program myself and I feel like I can serve as a role model for students. I am also working with other prep alumni on creating other programs and fund raisers for the students. The program runs for two summers and the school year.
Week One (July 10-14)
The kids have been in the program for almost three weeks at this point and although I had been around, this is the first week I've actually been able to stay and volunteer. With this being the final summer session for the 2006 class (kids going into the 9th grade) the other Allumi have decided that this would be a good time to talk to them about some of the challenges that they may face not only as teenagers, but also as minority students at predomitally causasian private schools. So after meetings from Monday to Thursday, along with working with the kids we organized several topics for our brown bag lunch series that will be held on thursdays after prep. Other than that the week was pretty much just me tutoring and talking to the kids about the imporantce of the program.
Week Two(July 17-21)
Ok so the main thing this week for me has been talking to the kids and helping them cope with the stress of the program, them finishing their ancient civilization projects, and working with the Alumni on planning a Fashion show fundraiser.One of the students, Bobby has been talking to me alot about issues at home and how he feels like no one cared about him. It really made me think about how so many of these kids who put up fronts actually have serious issues at home that noone knows about. I've made it a point to not only spend more time talking to Bobby and also getting to know his father and it seems that his father has issues with the fact that his son is not into sports, but at the same time he seems to try to try and make up for this by buying gifts that Bobby has no real use for. However I've noticed that the more anyone talks about how well Bobby is doing, he tends to change his attitude. Between monday and now (friday) I've noticed that his father has had more of a positive out look of the program, and I'm hoping that as the program continues he continues to realize that Bobby's accademic talents may take him farther than any football team.
Week Three ( July 24 - 28)
This week has been so stressful it's not even funny. Not only have I had to work all week, but now all of the 2006s are stressed out about whether or not they are going to graduate from the program! Unfortunatly I've learned that when trying to be rational with 13 year-olds, one must have the patience of a saint. For example, one of the kids, Roy (real names will not be used) decided that since he thought that he was going to fail, that he would stop doing his math work all together. When I was talking to him about his work (or lack thereof) he stated that he thought that he felt that he was going to fail, so he stopped trying. However if he had just looked at his grades, he would have seen that before he stopped trying he was near the top of his class. I asked him why he didn't look and he just said that he didn't want to see how bad he was doing. i think that this thursday for the brownbag we should talk about confidence and taking pride in one's work...
Week Four (July 31- August 4)
This whole week I've been dealing with the same parent and I'm starting to think that it is
Week Four (August 7-)
So there is one week of the program untill till the 2006 class graduates and the 2007 class goes under review to determine who is invited back into the program. So it's basically a repeat of last week only now the 2006 and 2007 class is going insaine. On Wednesday I got to have a meeting with a parent about why it is imporant for her child to not only respect adults but also to listen before she reacts. The kids who did not do/finish their homework or pass their earth science test had to stay after for proctor (this time allows them to do their missed homework, correct their test, and start other work once everything else is completed). However some of the girls started to gossip and as soon as I went over to ask them to stop talking Sue automatically reacted, got upsett and started to talk to the girl next to her again. I said I was not done and she told me in a very matter of fact tone that "she was not talking to me" (note, there was no attitude, she just said it like she was making a regular statement). I attampted to explain that this was not an approiate thing to say to an adult, however she did not understand and she began to get upset again. So I decided that I would explain to her mother why this was not acceptable and that once in high school, most teachers will not try to explain things to her. After this the mother said that she would help her daughter become more aware of this problem.
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight
Week Nine
Week Ten
Week Eleven
Week Twelve
Week thirteen
Week Fourteen
Week Fifteen
Week Sixteen
Week Seventeen
Week Eighteen
Week Nineteen
Week twenty
Psy498PracticumLog
Psy395Fall2005
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