Week Six 3/24/16

This week was total chaos. Three completely different days.

The first day everybody lost it. For some reason the students were having meltdowns and were not cooperating with the instructors. First thing an instructor must understand when a student is having a meltdown is to remain calm. If you start talking to them with an aggravated tone, it just adds fuel to the fire. In the morning, Nate, a student in the sewing department, could not understand certain instructions and when two different instructors were trying to teach him how to deal with the stress he was feeling, he kept on lashing out and started to yell at everybody to leave him alone. In the afternoon, another student started to break down when an instructor was trying to tell him he needs to start working on his personal goals. Daniel (the student) has a tendency to ask “what if” questions even if they are completely out of context. He had just asked a “what if” question and then said he’s doing excellent on his goals. The instructor wanted to make him recognize that he had just failed at his goals two seconds ago, but Daniel took it a completely different way and started to cry because he thought the instructor meant he’s been failing at everything he’s done since he’s been attending SEEDs.

The second day was filled with new recruits. A group from another organization called Mentor came into the warehouse and had a class. These individuals were very low-functioning and some had multiple disabilities: blind, deaf, etc. Each individual had a personal helper. While MaryAnn was running the class, she had to think of ways to break down the steps even more in order to increase their success rate. This day, unlike the first, was a very productive and easy day. Everybody was on their A-game and there were zero meltdowns. I took part in a small exercise with two other students in the afternoon. One of these students used to be very playful and would respond well in a conversation; however, in December she had an extreme breakdown and it caused her to be hospitalized for a week. Since then she hasn’t really been the same and doesn’t show any emotions anymore. However, during this exercise, I said a couple small remarks and I got her to smile and laugh and come out of her shell a little bit. Overall, a very successful day.

Each day of this week I had my own class. I worked with Camille, Charlie, Brian, Breanna, and Ricardo. I needed to be aware of each student’s goals and had to prepare for the class beforehand. This was a much more tiring job that I thought. By the third day, I was physically and mentally exhausted (cutting metal with shears isn’t easy with my lack of strength). Nevertheless, the impact I leave on these students is completely worth it.

I have grown very close with most of these students and will be very sad when I have to leave them in a couple weeks.

Thanks for reading!

Grace