Miriam: What do you think kept your workshop participants interested? What was their primary motivation in your opinion?

Lynn:

Attendance for half the kids was every consistent, and half the kids were in and out, in and out. I think it had to do with an age thing – I think the younger group of kids was a little bit more impressionable. What really worked were relationships. If you really want to motivate anyone, you have to have some kind of attachment to the person. If you bring that approach in teaching, and you invest in having a relationship with the kids, and getting attached to them; really making them feel that you’re there for them and you’re going to be supportive for that time that you’re there. I’m not their mom, but for that 2 hours I would consider myself to be some kind of guardian of them. When you do that, you could sense that as an individual, and you could really appreciate that, especially if you come from a place where you don’t have many relationships like that. I think that’s what also really motivated them. Then you have kids who want to impress you, and want to do it for themselves, and do it for you, and do it for the program. That’s one important thing – you can’t just be not connected to the kids that you’re teaching.

Miriam: What about with each other – it was a family, but were the kids also building relationships with each other in the program?

Lynn:

Yes. It was actually really interesting. Some of the kids came from different groups in the school – some of them were from older age groups. We had this one kid; his name was Nick, and he was the only white boy, the only white participant in our class. It really made him feel weird, and I don’t think he was high-ranked in his school, but he was in this program with some pretty popular kids, and not that the popular kids did not like him, it’s just that they developed a relationship and another respect. It definitely brought kids together. We have another kid who’s very socially awkward and doesn’t speak. Then he went on stage, and rapped in front of his school! It definitely built some connections. At James Lyng, the common thread was that they all went to the same school. That was everyone’s base.

Miriam: Do you think that, in terms of motivation in student satisfaction, was it more important they were building a relationship with the instructors and with the program, or with each other? How did those two things work out?

Lynn:

I would say both. It’s important for them – I set the tone with the classes, three R’s: you have to respect yourself, you have to respect each other, and you have to respect the environment. That covers everything, and it’s not good to have more than three rules, I think! Three rules is a good number, and that covers everything. They knew they had to do that – and it wasn’t hard for them! They walked in there and they already had this family respect.

People who might have some form of down’s syndrome, or some people who might have dyslexia or ADD were all talking to each other and encouraging each other to participate and get out of their shell. That was really impressive; I was really impressed with the participants this time. They already had that sense of respecting each other. That wasn’t really hard to do – they had that figured out. In terms of the instructor – yes, it is important for them to respect authority, but also understand that authority isn’t always this top-down figure; this super-powerful untouchable, unquestionable person. I really wanted to dismantle the hierarchy in the classroom and create a space where they could give me feedback, and I could give them feedback.

The only time I would ever have to talk to them – the most discipline I had to do was when a conversation was really exciting, and everyone was talking at the same time. It wasn’t even discipline – it was just a reminder that we have to listen, and it’s hard to do that when everyone’s talking, so we’re going to take turns and it might take time, and maybe we’ll run out of time. That was basically it – it was pretty good.