My CFE at a Glance: I completed my CFE at Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House. Frog Hollow is located on Renfrew and 4th in Vancouver. They have programs and events for all ages from children to seniors. I participated mostly with the programs for high school aged students. These programs almost exclusively involve students from Van Tech. The main programs I helped out with were BASE lunch, BASE leader training, youth skills, and the Anne Frank traveling exhibit. Details below!
I met with Molina, my contact at Frog Hollow, the Friday before I began my CFE to discuss my schedule and what I would be doing. Since the programs are at different times of the day, including evenings, my schedule varied from day to day. Most of the time I was at Frog Hollow from 10am-3pm but on Mondays and Wednesdays I stay until 5:30pm.
On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday at lunch time I went to Van Tech to do “play challenges” in the BASE space. BASE stands for Building A Safer Environment. The BASE program addresses bullying, harassment and discrimination in high school through mentoring, workshops and events throughout the school year. The program was founded in 2002 by a group of Van Tech students wanting to address issues of personal safety at their school. Each school year, fifty grade 11 and 12 students are trained as mentors and leaders then assigned to a grade eight homeroom. Through positive relationships between younger and older kids, the school climate is transformed into a safe and respectful space for all students. They also have a special room in the cafeteria where grade 8s can go on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at lunch time. Here they can play games, read books, or just hang out. There is a staff member from Frog Hollow and some BASE-trained grade 11s and 12s present each day (http://www.froghollow.bc.ca/youth/base-building-safer-environment). I created and facilitated a game called “BASE Leader Bingo” to help the grade 8s learn more about their BASE leaders. Most other days were spent playing pool, foosball, air hockey, and wii.
On Wednesday afternoons I helped Sylvia, a Frog Hollow employee, with the “Youth Skills” workshops at Van Tech. In the first week I just helped set up and observed the lesson. The next time I helped conduct mock interviews and led a discussion on the importance of professionalism. At the end of the session we played job jeopardy!
I also helped set up and promote the Anne Frank exhibit that was at Frog Hollow for the month of May. The opening ceremony was on Wednesday May 6th. I worked with Paula, a practicum student from the Langara social services program, to put up posters along commercial drive to promote the opening. I also did the same thing with Ryan, a practicum student from Adler. We also put up all of the wall hooks for the tapestries that are part of the exhibit. On the night of the opening ceremony I acted as a “Coordinator” at the event helping setup, managing volunteers, and giving information to guests.
The main project I worked on during my CFE was a training workshop for the BASE leaders. They are grade 11s and 12s from Van Tech who are taking part in training to be leaders and role models to the grade 8s in the BASE Space. On the last Monday of my CFE I facilitated a two hour lesson I had planned for them. We explored how to facilitate games/activities and how to engage extroverted vs introverted students. I also showed them the mood meter. I was excited to encourage their leadership skills and see them feel empowered to facilitate there own activities in the BASE space. In the next few weeks after I left they will be required to do this individually. I will have to check in with Frog Hollow to see if my lesson has given them the tools to perform this task. One of the most interesting experiences I had was in the BASE leaders training. I helped out with the training lesson the week before I did my lesson. I noticed that the presenters (the BWSS- Battered Women’s Support Service) were having trouble getting the students to participate. I realized that most of the students in the program were introverts. This helped a great deal with my lesson which was how to engage with introverted and extroverted students. The next week I got to come in and show how the previous week had been awkward because the presenters did not know how to engage with introverted students. This was a great jumping off point for my lesson.
While on my CFE I had the opportunity to see how students perform in an environment outside of the classroom. I found it difficult sometimes to get the grade 8 students in the BASE Space to participate in games. I think this was because I was not their teacher and they did not feel like they needed to participate. Now that I have seen how difficult some groups of students can be, I realize I need to explore how to motivate difficult students in more depth. My favourite part of my CFE was meeting the people who work at Frog Hollow, especially the people who run the youth programs- Molina, Stephanie, and Sylvia. They were very welcoming and we had a lot of fun together. I also enjoyed interacting with the BASE leaders. They were very responsible youth adults and it was inspiring to see them work hard as leaders to the grade 8s. I enjoyed my three weeks at Frog Hollow and I would recommend it as a great CFE option for future Teacher Candidates. Thanks for reading!!