Saturday, March 19, 2011

Thursday: Day 5

Today was a great day at Operation Breakthrough! For those of us teaching the school age classes all had moments where we really shined as teachers. I can tell that the kids have really become comfortable with us and I could tell that they were having a lot of fun. Laura and Maranda were in the game room again and it was by far the best day there yet. The highlight of the day was when we started playing limbo with Ms. Denise’s class. She sang and clapped a beat as the kids went under (and over) the limbo bar. The kids were having a blast and were hilarious! They did dance moves and came up with creative ways to get under the limbo stick. Lots of the people from our group were around for it and we all laughed so hard our sides hurt!

In the art room Sam was working with a little girl named Cierra and she was struggling with her drawing. She was frustrated and asked Sam to draw it for her. Sam told her that she had seen her fix a computer and write a great letter yesterday and she knew she could draw the picture. Then, when she came back to her, Cierra had finished her drawing and she told her what a great job she did. Hopefully, this helped her build more confidence and helped her know that it is okay to make mistakes.


During the volunteer lunch we got to see a guest speaker, Daryl, who spoke to us about his life story. He began by sharing a statistic that shocked us all. He said that one in three of the African American boys at Operation Breakthrough will end up serving jail time at some point in their life. He went on to tell us about the time he spent in a federal prison and the unbelievably horrible things that go on there. He was wrongly accused of committing murder and was exonerated after 24 years. He started started writing Centuri pleading them to reexamine his case 18 years before he was finally released in 2008. After the speaker, we were inspired to want to push our students achieve and make sure that they get all the resources they need to succeed so they can get out of this vicious cycle.

Tonight was also our final reflection. Through our talking circle we learned so much about each other and became even closer as a group. Everyone got a chance to be recognized for the contributions they have made this week. We have such an amazing group. If we were missing just one person, it would have been completely different. The time we have spent together this week has been more than priceless.

To end the night we all joined for a relaxing massage chain. Tomorrow is our last day at Operation Breakthrough and we want to make the best of it.These kids are amazing and it will be so hard to leave them.

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