Last day at SEEC

Thus far in this course, I have blogged directly after each session of observing. This time, I thought I would give it a little distance between observation and articulation. So, two weeks and one Spring Break later, I'm thinking back to my time at SEEC.


I would like to preface this analysis by say I only saw very brief, restricted, infrequent windows of life and learning at SEEC. The program involves many more lessons, themes, activities, hours, and years than I have been able to witness during my time there. Therefore, the following generalizations and sweeping summation of the program is admittedly very ignorant.


SEEC appears to be a program that is far more activity-based than object-based, and more play-based than creation-based. During my time there I watched different classes, one of four-year-old and one of fives. I activity observed about 20 kids and a rotating batch of instructors. I could never really decipher who was the lead teacher, the co-teachers, the assistants, or the drop-in museum educator/story teller/substitute teacher.

I am not sure is the student knew who the lead teachers are, or even if there are consistent lead teachers. Though I did notice an inconsistent lack of enforcement of safe-play. The students seemed to get away with a lot of negative behavior. On one occasion, three different kids were crying between two unrelated events. From what I could tell as I watched it all culminate, the crying students were victims to aggressiveness and light-weight bullying. But how did it escalate that far?

It seems bad behavior like bullying, gentle hitting, yelling, and supply stealing fell through the disciplinary cracks. Many teacher-figures noticed the behavior, but did not act. It seemed like each was assuming the next 'authority figure' would intervene. They didn't. Crying, flushed-faces, and pandemonium reigned. Without a clear lead teacher or authority figure, who is ultimately responsible for the welfare of the students?

On a (hopefully) related note, I did notice almost of the instructors (let's call them adults) were consistently stressed and frazzled over the three Tuesdays. My first day at SEEC the director told me the a sickness was going around, but I was surprised to see the children recover so quickly while the adults were slow-moving for weeks.

Another interesting aspect of SEEC is it's play/activity-based learning structure. I have seen similar structures in other classes and schools before, but SEEC did not seem to run as smoothly as the others. Generally, I would say SEEC is unregulated and therefore chaotic. Students are dismissed to "choices" without any instruction, that I witnessed. They were not reminded of rules before going (which became particularly disturbing during the Olympic Games activities and caused the crying hysteria).

At previous play-based sites, I saw the children selected for activities based on good behavior and how many kids could fit at each station. The instructors also avoided social problems by separating trouble students. At SEEC, one instructor said that they let the trouble students group together because "it's not like they're going to behave [well], anyway." Such reasoning makes me uncomfortable, but for all I know the staff there has already tried everything else to tame those wild children. I just do not know enough to judge.

After the pandemonium of SEEC, I am incredibly excited to go to Peabody next week. I hear the difference is like day and night. I could really use a session where there are no crying children or rug burns.