challenge Week 1

  Coming into this internship, I expected my first week to be a great time. My campers and myself would all just be getting to know each other, and I expected my campers to be shy and quiet. As I reflected on how my class was when I attended a Baltimore city public school in 4th grade, I honestly thought my biggest challenge of my first week would be getting the campers to open up and participate. However after the first week of summer camp, I then realized that the campers behavior management and finding ways to make this a fun and positive experience for not only myself but the campers as well.
     During this first week I have had campers who: ended up getting hurt by being pushed, cried because they were called a mean name or told that they couldn't participate in an activity by another camper, walk out of class when the activities were boring to them, take other students work and remind me multiple times that this camp is just like school because of all the work that they are doing. This was a huge shock to me. I didn't understand why the campers were behaving in such a way and why I had to constantly remind them or the rules and consequences that we have come up with for our little community.
     During my first day, I noticed another counselors class was very cooperative, quiet,  followed instruction, and we'll behaved. The counselor suggested to me that I should become more strict, and correct behaviors immediately after they happen. This did provide me with better results. The campers were still a handful but each day was a little bit better than the previous one. Yet, turning my classroom from the Authoritative management style that I had wanted to Authoritarian was equally as exhausting and still left me with a headache everyday.
     Moving forward,  I hope to find a better ways to dealing with my campers and creating more positive interactions between the campers and their peers as well as the campers and myself.