Fieldnotes
March 11, 2011: “Convo. with Katie; very enlightening for me, she clearly needs one-on-one time; very creative”
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It isn’t often at Girls Incorporated that staff members get the opportunity to have one-on-one time with the girls; we are busy people with too many responsibilities. When this opportunity comes, it is not only rare, it is enlightening. I, admittedly, have no experience with child psychology. However, after my afternoon with Katie, I felt like I genuinely knew her basic motivations and interests. It was a sunny Friday afternoon and while most girls played together in the gym, Katie, a five year old with round brown eyes and an adorable resemblance to Velma from the Scooby-Doo cartoons, asked me if we could play outside, instead. After getting permission from Erin, the program director, I led a few girls out to the courtyard area between the gym and the main building. A few other girls lingered between the gym and the adjacent courtyard, but only Katie stayed the whole recreational hour. I started off the hour by asking if she wanted to get a basketball or kickball out to play. She solemnly shook her head as she continued to stare at the ground and draw figures in the dirt. Her blatant disinterest in usual play activity indicated that she was the kind of girl who doesn’t easily fit into Girls Inc. Katie has no interest in learning to do yoga, or playing volleyball, or even cooking; she is a blossoming wall-flower who reminds me too much of myself to ignore. At Katie’s age, I was experiencing extreme familial discourse and I remember feeling disinterested in activities that once interested me. For my sake and Katie’s, I had to pass the hour somehow. Also, I couldn’t let Katie sit alone, left to be trapped in her own world without the solace of company.
I started by asking if she would be attending the Girls Inc spring break camp. “No,” was her only response. With responses like this, I figured this would be an extremely long hour, but still, I was intrigued by Katie’s seclusion from her peers. So instead, I asked her if she had any plans for spring break. She told me she was going to the biggest children’s museum in the world. After a few more questions, I hit the topic that let her break out of her shell for the day. She mentioned that she would be staying at a hotel in Indianapolis that has a water slide. I spent many birthday parties and sliding down that wonderful slide and even I felt excited when she mentioned the slide. I told her about my many long nights of eating birthday cake and sliding down the slide. After that, Katie looked up at me and smiled, pressing me for more details about the slide.
Once she had heard just about every imaginable detail I could remember, Katie asked what we should do. I was shocked by this because most of the girls would rather start a game by themselves or with a friend, rarely do they ask staff to start games with them. Once again, I offered to get a basketball or kickball, but she refused. So, instead, I asked her what she likes to do. Katie’s only response was that the only thing she likes to do is eat. Again, I found it helpful to relate this to myself. So, we talked about metabolism and how every person has a different metabolic rate (I simplified the wording a little during the conversation).
I still had to pass forty-five minutes with Katie in the outdoor courtyard. I began to think that if this girl is so much like how I was at her age, maybe she would like to do the same things I did as a five year old. My pride in my insider perspective, however, backfired. Katie doesn’t like to dance as much as I did; she very firmly told me that she hates dancing- I didn’t press the issue. Then, I remembered that she had been drawing pictures with rocks in the dirt. So, I offered to get her some paper and markers from the teen room. This was beyond exciting to her and she gleefully asked if she could pick out the colors. Because there were no other girls in the courtyard at the time, I agreed and escorted her to the teen room.
Katie seemed to be unusually proud to walk into the tiny, moldy smelling room that sits in a corner of the gym. At the time, this didn’t register with me, but later, it would unfold to reveal much of Katie’s character. Katie insisted that we go back to the courtyard so that she could draw and on the short walk back from the teen room, she brainstormed possible topics for her creations. There was nothing notable or remarkable about her chosen subjects, I was just intrigued by her desire to create. As a dancer, I have spent years attempting to bottle my creative energy for a single set of choreography; Katie, however, is seemingly made of creativity. After a few minutes of sketching and filling in the lines of the paper, she spots the remains of a flower between the cracks in the bricks of the garden. Katie’s art project for the afternoon ends up being a three-dimensional flower vase to hold her new finding. It had never occurred to me that children see the world differently and can visually experiment with their findings. My theory for this is that children are not as cluttered psychologically as adults are. Without the constraints of the professional world and expectations of proper adult behavior, children are free to create, provided that they don’t leave the safe confines of the Girls Inc property and don’t use unkind language when speaking to each other. Once again, I am no expert in child psychology, but Katie’s creativity was incredibly interesting- the end result was not a masterpiece, but it showed how creative a child can be.
While coloring and taping her dead flower (for stability), Katie opened up even more. She repeatedly expressed adoration for her older sister by disdain toward her younger, four year old sister. It was obvious that Katie was hurting and needed to vent her frustrations about being a middle child. There is a five year gap between Katie and her older sister, but only a yearlong gap between the youngest sister and Katie. From her creative, relaxed state, Katie explained that she didn’t want her younger sister coming to Girls Inc because she was no fun and mean. I realized almost immediately that Katie was trying to clear her own head in addition to convincing me that her younger sister was “mean.”
The three-dimensional flower vase was complete and it was time for the Girls Inc girls to clean up the center. Katie had completed a hundred and eighty degree turn in attitude- she willingly helped clean up and played with the other girls. I will never take credit for Katie’s attitude change, nor will I assume that her sudden interest in being involved was due entirely to talking to me- I am not a psychologist. However, I do think that having a person to talk to is incredibly important for happy childhood development. Every day that I volunteer at Girls Inc, I make sure that I say hello to Katie and ask how school was that day. After getting the opportunity to vent, Katie is much more active and friendly with her peers.
As a service learner, I am interested in getting to be more involved in Girls Inc than some of the other volunteer staff. Without realizing it, Katie divulged her frustrations to me while she was in her zone, so to speak. Organizations like Girls Inc are wonderful for most children, but for girls like Katie and the five year old version of myself, we need more than just a place to play, we need someone to talk to, who can engage us in conversation. Katie’s process of thinking aloud was as much about rationalizing her thoughts for herself as it was for convincing me of her point of view. It is up to service learners and the volunteer community to ensure that the Katies of the world do not slip between the cracks of broad organizations, like Girls Inc.
*name has been changed
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