First Reaction

The first day of participatory planning and design at Casey Middle School went well. To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. In some ways I was nervous that maybe the kids would not “buy in” to what we were doing. In another way, I was excited to get raw and candid responses from the children because I knew it would be invaluable to our class objective. The interesting thing is that both of these premonitions turned out to be true.

The first group of 6th graders were very enthusiastic and excited to show us what parts of their school they liked. Despite explaining our mission was to observe the outside portion of their school, they still insisted on showing us the indoor aspects of the school which they liked. A common theme that I noticed was that they were particularly proud of their individualized artwork around the building. Anything that made the area seem unique was vocalized immediately.

In a stark contrast to our first group, the second group remained quiet. Though trying to allow the children to guide our conversations and tour, this set of kids was unresponsive. Despite many prompts and guidance, the children really did not seem to embrace the purpose of the activity. At one point, one of the boys said “here, you take the camera. I don’t want it.” Luckily, he had already shown us which areas he liked. However, I was disappointed to see the lack of interest in our activity.

In both situations, I believe that I gained valuable insight. In the first period, the kids taught me that branding their own signature on the new school location is very important. In the second period, I learned that some of the children may not completely understand what is going to happen to their school. Perhaps further engagement with the quieter students on Wednesday will allow me to find out what they envision for the next two years of middle school. Jon Bortles~2/26/08