My incredible interns.... rock our world!
I’m so humbled and thrilled to continue to have college students and graduates who volunteer as interns over the last decade with our at-risk youth organization. Last night, I was taken back, as I listened to my close friends, who shared their life stories with our group of sometimes wild kiddos. My one intern, soon to be an ASU grad, was deeply concerned over a group chat that had included her. She was angered at the poor interaction of a group where one of our regulars had be kicked out of her own peer group in a rather mean fashion. I had already become aware of this through the young person who had suffered at the hands of these friends or sadly probably former friends.
My other intern, both now doing their internships at different schools, totally knocked it out of the proverbial ‘ballpark’ with her sharing about how her life isn’t perfect. She too struggles with emotional stuff at times. I was inspired by listening to her heartfelt thoughts. The bigger picture was that one of our 10-year olds stood up and shared why it was so important to figure out how to face your bad days. He was quick to explain how having someone bully you may push you to hurt yourself or others. He was speaking from his own experience. His mom had texted me earlier that he wasn’t having a great day at school.
The wisdom of these young ladies is over the ‘top’. It was quickly noticed that the attention span and ability for too many in our group is a by-product of their being high tech kiddos. I will confess that my iPhone is my lifeline for my office and personal life. My challenge too, is that too many of the teens are totally obsessed with taking selfies and then posting almost every few minutes. Anyone that gets in the way of their social media time is likely to get verbal abuse and threats of bodily harm.
The challenge and more so opportunity for these new teachers is that they understand the world around these kids soon to become teens and then enter into the working world. What happens when one of these teens has to find employment and is told that their phones have to be off, put up and not used until break time or at lunch, if they even get these at their first job? Flying between YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat becomes their main way of communicating. I’m always shocked when one of our eight-year-olds says he messages on Forte Night to his friends in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. Here'sHere
I’m grateful to ASU, the largest university in the US, for their Service Learning Program and passion to have their students be intentionally involved in the community in a first-hand setting!
Here's one of the reasons why our interns are so important! Meet, as I call him, Mr. J, who is already an incredible scholar, helper and counselor to his cousins.