College Social Worker Interview & Class Observations
Well, my intention was to wake up a little earlier today because I felt like I was running late yesterday and I don't like that feeling, especially when I'm running on someone else's time. But alas, my alarm didn't go off this morning. I woke up when Joyce came into the apartment at 7:07. We wanted to leave at 7:30. So whoops. I got ready very quickly.
To start off the day, I had an interview with a college social worker named Tom. Joyce had to translate for us. It was pretty interesting just learning about what a college social worker does. Essentially he is like the counselor on Heartland's campus, helping students through mental and emotional stress. He mentioned things like incest and rape, which kind of caught me off-guard, but I forget that counselors have to help people through super heavy things like that. There are 8 total social workers for the 18,000 ROC Midden Nederland students. I thought that didn't sound so bad since I think ISU probably has 10 counselors for 20,000 students... but I honestly have no idea. Heartland has one counselor for 5,000 so 8 for 18,000 sounds okay to me haha!
I briefly observed Joyce's intern's class. There was a bit of an awkward situation going on in there because some of the students were supposed to have had presentations ready and none of them did. Joyce dismissed them for 10 minutes to work on the presentations; they left, but didn't come back for 25 minutes. So I came in when they were ready to give the presentations and you could tell that they were just thrown together. We (Joyce, her intern, and myself) had a long chat afterwards about the class dynamics and the characteristics of some of the students. Long story short--college students are the same everywhere in terms of classroom behavior, wanting to do work, and being prepared for class! #theyaresortofslackers
I visited another one of Joyce's classes in the afternoon and gave my presentation again. These were higher level students and there were 23 in attendance. No one asked me if I had met a celebrity, but one of the students asked me about what type of people shop at Walmart (haha!) and another asked me about poor people versus rich people.
After that, I had a class observation with Willem, one of Joyce's colleagues, who teaches social studies. He was gracious enough to do the first part of his lesson in English and the students replied in English, as well. It was a current events lesson, which I think he must do consistently. They watched two news stories in Dutch and then translated it for me so that I could understand it. They then discussed what they thought of the news stories and issues that surrounded them. The first video was about human trafficking and how people from Sudan and Ethiopia are coming to the Netherlands seeking asylum. Willem asked the students what they thought of that and they said things like, "They are people too; we should let them come here" and "We should help them with their home countries so that they can stay there." I thought those were pretty charitable views.
The other story was about the Dutch government arresting citizens who were traveling to Syria and northern Iraq. The idea was that these people were planning to join ISIS. Willem asked the students what they thought about the government doing that--is it their place or should they allow their citizens to live their lives? The students were more torn on that question. One student's 15 year-old neighbor had actually gone to Syria to "help," which she said was cooking and cleaning for the men. I don't know if that meant she was helping ISIS or helping the people who are fighting against ISIS. The students talked about being brainwashed and how the ideas of those groups are radical and incorrect.
Both times, Willem asked me for my opinion so I told the class about how some Americans would say to build a secure wall to keep Mexicans from taking American jobs and using our resources without paying taxes, while others believe that Mexicans are fleeing terrible lives and that we should help them. I also said that the American government has arrested people who are planning to travel to places where it's likely they are going to help terrorist groups, but that I would assume the American government is researching who those people are and what they are up to, which would give some weight to why they would arrest someone. I said that some Americans think that the government "spying" on them is taking away their freedom, but I believe that if they "spy" on me that they are just trying to keep me safe.
So anyway, it was really interesting to be in that class for the short time they had those conversations, just to hear what the students had to say. It was particularly interesting since the majority of them are of Arabic descent, as I said before.
I've had students ask me a lot of good, interesting, funny questions. It's fun to talk to them. It's also fun because I will see the same students many times, so I might get to know some of them a little bit.
Tonight for dinner we had Thai food from the restaurant underneath where Joyce and Asgeir live. Convenient! It was also so delicious! I've only had pad thai before, but this was coconut curry chicken. Yum! Joyce and I went on a little walk while waiting for the food to be ready. She lives in a very cute area in Hilversum--lots of shops and restaurants. I plan to go down there by myself and just meander, even though I can't tell what anything is because it's all in Dutch! I need to go down there and get some chocolate (imagine that) and I also might buy a hair straightener with a proper Euro plug since mine makes a clicking sound when I plug it in and am afraid to actually turn it on.
Til next time...
To start off the day, I had an interview with a college social worker named Tom. Joyce had to translate for us. It was pretty interesting just learning about what a college social worker does. Essentially he is like the counselor on Heartland's campus, helping students through mental and emotional stress. He mentioned things like incest and rape, which kind of caught me off-guard, but I forget that counselors have to help people through super heavy things like that. There are 8 total social workers for the 18,000 ROC Midden Nederland students. I thought that didn't sound so bad since I think ISU probably has 10 counselors for 20,000 students... but I honestly have no idea. Heartland has one counselor for 5,000 so 8 for 18,000 sounds okay to me haha!
I briefly observed Joyce's intern's class. There was a bit of an awkward situation going on in there because some of the students were supposed to have had presentations ready and none of them did. Joyce dismissed them for 10 minutes to work on the presentations; they left, but didn't come back for 25 minutes. So I came in when they were ready to give the presentations and you could tell that they were just thrown together. We (Joyce, her intern, and myself) had a long chat afterwards about the class dynamics and the characteristics of some of the students. Long story short--college students are the same everywhere in terms of classroom behavior, wanting to do work, and being prepared for class! #theyaresortofslackers
I visited another one of Joyce's classes in the afternoon and gave my presentation again. These were higher level students and there were 23 in attendance. No one asked me if I had met a celebrity, but one of the students asked me about what type of people shop at Walmart (haha!) and another asked me about poor people versus rich people.
After that, I had a class observation with Willem, one of Joyce's colleagues, who teaches social studies. He was gracious enough to do the first part of his lesson in English and the students replied in English, as well. It was a current events lesson, which I think he must do consistently. They watched two news stories in Dutch and then translated it for me so that I could understand it. They then discussed what they thought of the news stories and issues that surrounded them. The first video was about human trafficking and how people from Sudan and Ethiopia are coming to the Netherlands seeking asylum. Willem asked the students what they thought of that and they said things like, "They are people too; we should let them come here" and "We should help them with their home countries so that they can stay there." I thought those were pretty charitable views.
The other story was about the Dutch government arresting citizens who were traveling to Syria and northern Iraq. The idea was that these people were planning to join ISIS. Willem asked the students what they thought about the government doing that--is it their place or should they allow their citizens to live their lives? The students were more torn on that question. One student's 15 year-old neighbor had actually gone to Syria to "help," which she said was cooking and cleaning for the men. I don't know if that meant she was helping ISIS or helping the people who are fighting against ISIS. The students talked about being brainwashed and how the ideas of those groups are radical and incorrect.
Both times, Willem asked me for my opinion so I told the class about how some Americans would say to build a secure wall to keep Mexicans from taking American jobs and using our resources without paying taxes, while others believe that Mexicans are fleeing terrible lives and that we should help them. I also said that the American government has arrested people who are planning to travel to places where it's likely they are going to help terrorist groups, but that I would assume the American government is researching who those people are and what they are up to, which would give some weight to why they would arrest someone. I said that some Americans think that the government "spying" on them is taking away their freedom, but I believe that if they "spy" on me that they are just trying to keep me safe.
So anyway, it was really interesting to be in that class for the short time they had those conversations, just to hear what the students had to say. It was particularly interesting since the majority of them are of Arabic descent, as I said before.
I've had students ask me a lot of good, interesting, funny questions. It's fun to talk to them. It's also fun because I will see the same students many times, so I might get to know some of them a little bit.
Tonight for dinner we had Thai food from the restaurant underneath where Joyce and Asgeir live. Convenient! It was also so delicious! I've only had pad thai before, but this was coconut curry chicken. Yum! Joyce and I went on a little walk while waiting for the food to be ready. She lives in a very cute area in Hilversum--lots of shops and restaurants. I plan to go down there by myself and just meander, even though I can't tell what anything is because it's all in Dutch! I need to go down there and get some chocolate (imagine that) and I also might buy a hair straightener with a proper Euro plug since mine makes a clicking sound when I plug it in and am afraid to actually turn it on.
Til next time...