Sunday, May 4, 2008

A Rewarding Experience

As my resume shows, I worked at a recreational camp in my town of River Edge, New Jersey, over the summer a year ago. I worked with kindergartners. The camp is set up mainly for the kid's safety. Because of this each grade has a designated color, each child receives a few shirts of the same color to wear to camp each day. My campers where the red team. A child that really was special named Ana was placed into my group. Her mother spoke with me and told me she was selectively mute. Ana would only speak to her mom and the people who lived in her house. Other wise she would whisper softly or stomp her feet to get some one's attention. Her mother also told me that she would only wear the colors purple and pink. The problem was that our color was red. Through out the few weeks we had together Ana slowly warmed up to me and I was able to get to her wear her red shirt for a field trip one day. She was really making progress. By the end of the month she was fully talking to me, just a little above her whisper. In the short time we had together me and Ana bonded. It was really awesome that I could help this child out and make her feel comfortable enough to talk to me, considering she still wasn't talking with anyone else. In the end Ana and I had a real special bond and I hope that she will remember me and realize that it's okay to talk a little louder.