I Survived Grade 9 (Again!)

Here's a quick update on my JA session yesterday. Overall, I think it went very well and the student evaluations confirmed that the kids thought so too.

I hosted a class of 22 students from John Paul II Collegiate in Okotoks. They were a bit chatty at times and the teacher wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped with regard to keeping order. Still, I think they were pretty well behaved and attentive. It was interesting to see which of my adult facilitation techniques worked with a group of 15-year olds. For instance, drawing out the quiet ones worked but standing next to the unruly ones generally had little effect on their behaviour.

Their bus arrived late, so I lost about 25 minutes of my 3-hour session right off the hop. I ended up compressing things a bit and still finished up on time. I think this was a great feature of the curriculum, as it was composed of lots of short segments which could be customized to the time available.

The kids liked the interactive bits the most, particularly the games (as expected). But they also did quite well with the budgeting, specifically trying to match up their expenses with the fictitious jobs and paycheques I gave them. Several students asked some pretty good questions - when they weren't cutting up, that is.

In general, the girls were way more into the day than the boys were. The guys seemed to have a much harder time focusing and keeping their attention on the lesson. Which leads me to the following observations...

Things I'd do differently next time: 1) Assign random seating to break up the little cliques; 2) Arrange the seating in table groups vs. row style; and 3) Expect the teacher to merely observe and not participate.

There are other JA programs for different age groups, so next fall I'd like to try out some other teaching opportunities. I can't say enough about the JA support staff and the way they organize things. It really makes the volunteer's role super easy and enjoyable. I definitely recommend the experience!