Well the past two weeks teaching the students from UAY were difficult! I suppose I will start with our Jam Session. Things were messed up from the beginning. Our two ladies were missing! Half of our group missed the longest class of the project, this worried me. What was the problem? Why weren't they coming, was it us or was the class too long? Did they just not appreciate the project? I'm not certain what the issue was, but it was unsettling. That said, we had both Sam and Daniel at our creative fingertips and we got some work done. We were able to get the guys through the grouting of their projects and we started making some different items as well. Daniel really seemed to enjoy his sword and Sam kept himself busy making a journal.
Unfortunately the topic of underage drinking came up several times. One of our students had spent his time over one the prior nights drinking liquor. As it turns out he was caught and got himself in some trouble. It was pretty distracting because the topic was brought up repeatedly. The group next to us caught wind of the story and started chiming in on the subject. This touchy subject had to be danced around and I felt like we handled it the right way, constantly shutting down the conversation. It made me wonder, where do we draw the line and get stern and a bit more direct about things? I was to the point of frustration, the topic was inappropriate and should not have been brought up more than once but it lingered on. I was irritated.
The students managed to stay on task for most of the class. At the end though, they started losing focus. They were Very productive overall though.
Moving on to last week, one of my worst fears was realized. It appears that we have lost our second student. She has missed two classes in a row at the very end and joined late to begin with. Her work was heading in the right direction and I think was going to turn out great. I don't have any expectations that she might show up for the last few sessions. Two of the projects won't be finished and they were pretty good too. This whole UAY thing has been a difficult experience to accept.
