I can't believe I've already had three Mondays with my new group of girls at the Y! I really enjoy this program and it's the one thing I really look forward to every week. The two hours a week I spend with these girls is more rewarding than the 40 hours a week I spend at work (I finally quit my part time job at Target. Hooray for being down to one job again!) or anything else in my life, really. Unfortunately, though, there are a few girls this session that are really trying my patience. More on that in a little bit.
This week we focused on positive influences, inspirational material and why it's awesome to be a girl. The first half of the night the girls created collages. In groups of four, they each cut out about four images or words out of magazine and then pasted them together on construction paper. After the groups finished their projects, one girl from each group explained the importance of their work. Two things really stuck out to me. "I picked out a car, because I'm going places" and "We put a cancer ribbon on {our collage} because a lot of women get breast cancer. And sometimes they lose their hair and don't feel beautiful anymore. But they're always beautiful." Sometimes, I'm absolutely blown away by what comes out of the mouths of children.
Our physical activity this week was Zumba. Many of the girls, myself included, absolutely fell in love with this exercise. I had never done this before, but have been excited to try it for some time. We danced to about 6 or 7 songs, my favorite of them being Stereo Hearts by the Gym Class Heroes. This workout kicked my butt, and the best part? Not once did it feel like a workout! One of the girls came up to me as they were leaving and told me she loved Zumba and wanted to do it every day. It was great to see the girls enjoy themselves so much.
...Unfortunately, this is where the program is getting trying. There have been about six girls out of the group who really test my patience every week. They don't listen to any of the volunteers or the advisor and blatantly do the exact opposite of what they're asked. They don't participate in any of the group activities, and you'd think we were asking them to go through a root canal the way they refuse to join in the physical activities. They don't even try it, but miraculously, know they don't like it. Isn't that convenient? I tried really hard to get the girls to join in, but I would have better luck nailing jello to a tree.
Me: Girls, you'd be able to see the instructor better if you got in line.
Girl 1: I don't want to see her!
Me: Well, you guys should participate, it's a lot of fun!
After the next song, Me: Girls you really need to participate with everyone else.
Girl 2: Can I go get a drink?
Me: Didn't you just do that?
Girl 2: No, I went to the bathroom before.
Me: Fine, but if you're not back in five minutes I'm coming after you.
After the next song: Girls, if you're not going to participate, you need to be quiet so everyone else can.
Girls: Ok. Continue to talk in a circle.
Repeat previous two lines two more times.
This went on until after the physical activity, where they refused to sit by the advisor to listen for the next week's activities, continued to color after they were told they needed to line up to leave, and continued to look me in the eye, say ok, and then go back to what was clearly more important.
Now, I understand middle schoolers get riled up and I understand having to deal with attitude problems. I'm more than prepared to handle that. What I am struggling with is being a volunteer with little authority or apparently imporantance in their lives. They are not made to be there (well, they probably are by their parents). They don't listen to one person in the room, they talk over everyone and don't participate in one activity. This is incredibly frustrating and takes nearly all of my energy for the night. The small chatter turns into screaming as they try to talk over instructions and other girls, and then other girls become distracted, and before I know it, I have an entire room of screaming, uncooperative sixth graders.
This is exactly how I know I will never become a teacher.
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