Day 4

Today was a productive day, as I began to help Alexia complete her homework packet. If she finished her homework packet, she would not have to bring it home to complete it so we were both determined to use the opportunity for her to finish her packet before Brain Train ended.

            “Are you excited to learn, Alexia?” I asked her, while she was eating her goldfish crackers and drinking her chocolate milk.

            “Yes! I need to finish the math part. I do not like subtraction. I like math though, it is very fun.”

            She was motivated to not only complete her homework packet, but was willing to learn. Her motivation to learn reminded me of Dan Pink’s video that he made about motivation. That people are motivated to do things not for rewards, but their drive and for themselves. Alexia wanted to complete her homework packet so she could learn more and practice more math problems. Alexia began to do her homework problems and had trouble with the subtraction problems. I helped with her subtraction by using my fingers to subtract. This method helped her a lot because she could visualize the numbers and how many were being subtracted. After she finished her homework packet, she thanked me for helping her and teaching her. This surprised me because this was the first time she said “thank you” to me for helping her.

            At the next station in Brain Train was the computer lab. I told Alexia to quickly pick a computer so she could start using the math simulators and she obediently listened, which made me happy because she did not run around the room looking for a certain computer like the last time we had computer lab time during Brain Train. After completing her assignments in the computer lab, the group headed over to the library to learn some more Math.

            Alexia was behaving so well until the group went to the library for the next station. She began picking up the deck of cards on the table and throwing them on the floor. This made me frustrated because she was misbehaving out of nowhere. With no previous indications of misbehavior, she began to run around the library frantically searching for a pencil. In a tern voice, I told her to quickly take a seat and try to calm her down. It took a good five minutes until she finally listened.