Tim's cousin Lisa asked how Jonathan's school was going, with the French immersion and all. I guess I haven't posted much about it since the sad first day story.
The answer is, we think it is a wild success. Within a few weeks, Jonathan was yelling at all of us in French. "Stand up!" "Sit down!" "Come to the carpet!" "Line up!" "Push in your chair!"
He counts to thirty in French -- four times -- as he brushes his teeth at night. He knows colors and a few songs, and runs around the house singing stuff about houses on fire and firemen in French. He loves school.
In fact, there are only two things about his school that make Tim and me a little nervous. The first is the fact that Jonathan is learning all his math in French class. This is fine in theory. He knows numbers and patterns and counting all in French now. What worries us is that there is no splitting of the children into math groups based on ability. On the one hand, we don't want him to get behind in the French. But on the other hand, Jonathan is good at math and enjoys it. In fact, right now he is upstairs counting out numbers by threes and fours and writing them all down, just for fun, completely on his own. As a math geek myself, married to a math geek, I would really really like to encourage this in school as well as outside school.
The other thing that bothers us is his Tuesday-Thursday after school program. Because Tim and I both work full time, we need Jonathan to attend that extra one hour after school program each day (except Friday, when it isn't offered). But Tuesday and Thursday they just put all the kids in a room and tell them to do their homework for an hour. Jonathan is in first grade. He has about 10 minutes of homework total, much of which is of the form read aloud to your parents. So this 1 hour after school is a waste of his time. (Monday-Wednesday, on the other hand, he goes to cooking class, which is really great.)
Anyway, what would be coolest in my opinion, is if we could somehow combine the advanced math and the after school program into a Tuesday-Thursday math club. Wouldn't that be perfect? The kids who went could learn cool math they aren't learning in school, like fun geometry facts, or counting patterns, or tilings, or fractals, or whatever! Just so long as it's fun and they're learning. Perfect perfect solution to both problems.
Now, how in the world would you get such a program going? I think you'd have to have a parent volunteer. Which parent would that have to be? Well, it was my idea -- only there's that serious problem about me working full time. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon would be really hard -- even just for an hour. What if I roped in a few students from the math education department to do it? They aspire to teach kids math for a living. So doing an after school math program would be perfect for them. And maybe a few regular math majors, too. But how would we compensate the students for their time? Do you think they would just volunteer? They're busy too. I don't think it would happen.
Also, what about teaching small children? That's got to be hard. Motivating six year olds and keeping their attention would be very different from motivating college students. And if the elementary school is worth anything, it would make us all go through serious background checks and several hoops before we could get the program got off the ground. And if college students are running it, then since they come and go with the ebb and flow of graduation dates, the background checks would be a continual issue.
Anyway, this is a nice idea of mine, but is there really any chance of making it work? Have any of my (very small) group of readers ever heard of anything like this happening? How would you get an after school math club going in an elementary school?
There is a guy in my department who runs a Saturday club for older children. Probably the right place to start would be to talk to him about it. And my department chair actually has three girls in Jonathan's class (triplets), so I bet he would be interested in such a thing as well. So he would be the next place to go.
Meanwhile, I don't think I want more projects.
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4 comments:
Every great idea leads to a lot of wonderful exhaustion. I think you're on to something great!
I think you could tap into the college student well and make it work. My firm used to have a homework club program with a charter school in Harlem and I volunteered regularly until the program was cut (don't know the total story on why it was cut). We didn't have any sort of background check but there was always a teacher supervising. I assume the teacher who is running the Tues/Thurs program currently would continue to do so. Maybe this doesn't alleviate your background check worries as a mother but as long as the volunteers aren't ever alone in the classroom with the children, I would assume this wouldn't be a problem (but again, I am childless and probably don't have the same perspective as a parent).
If you can work out some sort of extra credit or intern type credit or just good graces in the department type incentive, I think students would volunteer. Especially since it is kind of a novel type of volunteer work, you might be able to find a student with aligned interests who would be willing to run with getting the program off the ground.
Good luck, I think it sounds like a great idea!
Thats the bummer about coming up with a great idea (and it is a great idea) is that you get to be the one to push it forward.
This is why I step back a lot and let the young energetic ones tackle their ideas--I keep mine out of the limelight, not because I don't have any, but because I don't have the time nor energy to push it forward.
Great post.
I'm sure you could advertise and find several enthusiastic elem. ed. or math students to volunteer and get a title or two or three on their resume: After-school math club developer, volunteer coordinator, and volunteer. Has your dream begun to materialize in any way?
I have had a hard time finding interested adults or parents to commit to my dream ideas for free English (ESL) and Spanish classes in my home, all except my one friend and her kids. So, we do a kids' Spanish class every Friday that no one is sick, or has a wedding, or is leaving town, etc. Perhaps our school would let me offer a Spanish club after I no longer have babies at home...
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