TEEN NIGHT 3/25

This particular teen night was a very important one. We had been off for two weeks and were a little leary that we would not have many students attending but to our suprise it was one of the most popular nights. We were making popcorn with some of the girls while waiting for the rest of the students to arrive and one of our teens said in passing that she had been accepted into Iowa State College. Ashley Smith and I looked at each other and back at the girl and said, “What!” We explained to her with the help of Debra, that getting into college is no small thing and talked about how proud of her we are. Once the rest of the students arrived we had her announce her news to everyone so that we could all give her the proper congratulations. I think it is so important to encourage these students to achieve their dreams and was very suprised that she seemed very nonchalant about her acceptance. She did, however seem more excited when we had her tell the entire group and all of the kids showed their excitement for her. In contuning the night we have the teens watch Tuskegee Airmen, a movie about the first African American fighter pilots and discussed with them how those pilots were treated. We talked about how they were sort of set up to fail and told constantly how the United States was not “their country”. The kids seemes to really get into the movie and we had some great discussion. After we completed the movie Debra asked the teens if they would like to meet one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. One of them has retired in Bellevue and Debra thinks that she could get him to come speak to them even though he does not do public speeches anymore. I was suprised to see all of the girls in the group say yes we would definitely like that but the boys were not giving us much of an answer. We have had issues in the past with bringing a presenter and only having two teens show up so Debra wanted to make sure that they would come if we invited this speaker. We got sort of wishy-washy answers and were talking to one of the lead boys who was acting very strange. We could not tell if the movie  upset him, if he just wasn’t interested in the speaker or why he was saying that he didn’t know if he would be there when he attends every single week. We decided not to hound him infront of his friends so after we said goodbye to all of the kids Debra, Ashley and I talked about what we thought was going on with him. This young man was one of our best group members and we really did not understand so Debra decided that she would go to  his house and talk to him, she has a strong relationship with the young man and his family. After I got home that night I recieved a call from Debra telling me that we read him all wrong. He told her that he loved the movie and would really like the opportunity to be able to talk to this man but did not want to have this man show up if none of the teens did. This young man had been at Teen Night a previous week when we had brought in a speaker and only Ashley, Debra, he and I had showed up so we cancelled. He said how embarassing that was and if this man was such a legend he did not want to bring him all the way out to Crestview to have no one show up. I was so supprised by this and very proud of him, in my opinion this showed how much this teen has matured over the year and how much repect he has gained for others.

March 31, 2010. Uncategorized.