The Tammy G

Quote 1: "A corollary observation is that Youth have different interests and needs and therefore respond differently to the same opportunities is that they should have choices about which activities they participate in and they should have a chance to help shape those activities." (Hamilton, Hamilton, & Pittman).  I completely agree with quote 1000%. Every child is different and as youth workers we should try as much  as possible to learn all the interests and needs of our youth in order to have a better understanding of how they all personally learn, how they can learn from one another, how they see the world and in what ways they can thrive to the best of their abilities. Coming from my own personal experience I have always been a visual and "hands on" learner. Growing up, lectures were alright but whenever there was an opportunity for the class to have group discussions or watch interactive videos, or even getting a step by step "how to" lesson from...

While reading " Marcus On Being Good!" by Carla Shalaby, I noticed a few visible and invisible rules and codes that are used within Marcus' classroom. A visible class rule that I picked up on is that he class starts the day in a reading circle and their teacher usually gives them instructions on what to look out for during the reading. The class then participates in writing activities and if anyone has questions or concerns, they are to inform the teacher and the teacher will help them. An invisible rule amongst the entire class is whenever Marcus says/does something, the rest of the entire class seem to have the common notion to ignore him and continue with on with their work. The idea behind this is to probably not give into Marcus' antics and to not encourage him to continue with his behavior however, by the whole class ignoring him I can't help but realize that these actions probably just makes Marcus feel isolated and left out. Something similar that I can c...

One stereotype about young people was discussed in the video, Child Development Core Story Part 2: Save and Return. The video discusses the common judgement that families in low income neighborhoods aren't able to have the proper resources to care and support their children. Without this care and support, children lack brain architecture that gives them an advantage not only in academics but better social skills, emotional regulation and a higher ability to learn than a child lacking positive adult attention. That without this healthy brain architecture , students are more prone to falling behind in school and never catching up. This brings me back to my own childhood as when I was three years old my mother enrolled me into the Head Start program. Head Start was pretty much a free preschool that not only taught me social, emotional and academic skills, but they also helped me with my behavior (I was a bit of a handful). Head Start was honestly the best thing that happened for me...

Personally from my own experience working with youth in the after school setting, I was already aware that with the increasing of organization expansions comes a decrease in the relationships between students and staff. As stated in the article, "Community-Based Youth Work in Uncertain Times" by Bianca Baldridge. It is explained how as organizations begin to increase within their communities there is now more of a business-like and corportatizing approach to youth work, causing the once known family-like atmosphere to be very little or even non existent in youth programming (Baldridge). That even students have a different perception of their programs as the organizations expand and as their youth workers just come and go, not building a relationship with them. This reminded me of my own personal experience of when I was first hired as a Site Coordinator for my current middle school site. Prior to my employment, the goals for my site started to increase over the years regardin...