Weekly Report 2/25

This week I was able to go around and find different bookstores that I would like to talk to. This week I plan on going around to them and talking to the owners, getting a feel for who I will be working with, and really getting a start on my project. I tried to set up an interview at Barnes and Noble on campus but the manager has yet to get back to me, so I am waiting for that. Other than that, this week consisted of me finding a starting point for my project and figuring out how many independent bookstores I want to cover.

Weekly Report 2/18

This weekend I had to completely change my project idea. Instead of doing the special needs project I am doing it about local bookstores and how chain bookstores affect the sales and customer relations of them. I would like to do it through text and video. Through this project I am hoping to show why customers should choose to shop locally and how much more personal ones experience can be whenever you go to a small bookstore. After redoing the Instagram project and doing the motion project I found that many bookstores get by by also selling CD’s and records along with their books.

Motion Assigment

For this assignment I filmed the simple task of stacking books up. It captures how local bookstores give off the unorganized vibes, yet the staff knows exactly where everything is.

Instagram Project Pt 2

All of these pictures represent local bookstores throughout the area, and how they are being competed with, and often put out of business due to chain bookstores.

#breatheatreadlocal

Instagram Photo Project

 

This is the logo to the Children’s Institute.

“My disorder is called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. There are six known types, and I have type three called Hypermobility. It is a genetic disorder that is recessive, and parents do not show symptoms usually. This disorder has various symptoms, but the ones I experience include constant headaches, joint pain, and involuntary muscle movements. I was diagnosed in October of 2012, and will live with this disorder the rest of my life. There is no cure, but wearing braces on main joints like the knees and wrists, and going to physical therapy has helped a lot.”

Quote: “And though she be but little, she is fierce” ~Shakespeare

 

“He’s quiet till ya get to know him. And he has a great sense of humor. He also loves to sing and dance.”

Equal in spelled out in sign language.

This is a chart that I made for my project on special needs workers finding professional jobs. I felt that it fit in with this project because it shows an extra wall that stand in the way of special needs people.

This just shows how special needs are perceived in society.

This is a picture of one of the students in my classroom at the Children’s Institute. It gives an idea of the type of children who go to the Day School there.

Puppets were often used at the Children’s Institute to engage students and allow them to be interested in what they were learning.

These are used in the education of special needs teachers.

A makeshift classroom.

I stole this off of Twitter. It shows special needs kids who are given on opportunity and who have hope to live a typical life.

Weekly Report 3

This week I was finally able to get in touch with the head of Community Resources at the Children’s Institute and also the head of the transitional classrooms. Because I need to be cleared to come in we have not set up an interview yet, but we are in the process of doing so. After talking to the head of the classroom I realized that many of the kids in these classrooms will not be holding a job due to the severity of their disability. However, I would still like to go in and see how they prepare young adults with special needs to go out into the world.

Weekly Report 2

After going to do the observation project I was able to choose a focus. At the Day School there are three types of classrooms and one is known as the transitional classroom. Here, students are able to learn how to respond to everyday tasks that they would need in order to function in the community. I would like to gain a better understanding on what exactly goes on in these classrooms and how they prepare these students for a professional environment. I would also like to be able to sit in on a classroom for a day to see what kind of activities are performed and how the students react to them. I do realize that I am most likely not going to be able to take a camera with me whenever I do this so this part will most likely end up being text. I was also able to send another email to Community Resources who I am having trouble getting in touch with, and I also sent an email to set up an interview with someone who is associated with the transitional classrooms. I did manage to get in touch with the supervisor of the transitional classrooms at the Day School and he is going to get me cleared to come in for interviews.

Observation Activity: The Children’s Institute

The first thing that I notice as I enter The Children’s Institute is how familiar it all feels. After having a job there for about a year I had not realized how much I missed it. I use my badge to enter the familiar back door of the Institute and take a seat in the Day School lobby, waiting for the daily commotion of getting the students off of their buses. As I sit there I begin to notice things that I had never had time to notice before such as the brightly painted walls that gave off a welcoming and pleasant vibe. I then register the smell of the Institute. It is clean, but not doctor’s office clean. It is a smell that can only be associated to The Children’s Institute. There is a trickle of last minute teachers who had gotten stuck in the traffic of the day and I see the first school bus pull up to the curb. Teachers and their TA’s come out of their rooms to see which students were here and who was not. I soon saw some of the teachers that I had worked for and we talked about how school was going and what I was doing there. They loved that I was doing a project about students that they had grown to love and care for. As the students began to come in I could hear the conversations, “How was your weekend,” “What kind of things did you do,” “Did you catch the Super bowl?” Usually the question remained unanswered. For the students who did answer, however, their responses were precious. Many answered yes or no without explanation, but it was said with such enthusiasm that it was impossible not to smile. As more buses rolled into the lot the real commotion began. Students were coming in from every which way and the “traffic jams” began. Students who are able to steer their own wheelchairs would sometimes decide to stop going or become caught on a railing. Teachers handled it with a hearty attitude and normal traffic flow was restored. Around the same time the front desk began to get non-stop phone calls and endless paperwork that needed to be done by the end of the day. Phone calls typically went like, “So Johnny was sick this morning so I’ll send him in tomorrow, can you tell our Miss Sarah that he won’t be in today?” or that a child would be in late due to oversleeping, much like a typical school day. Soon buses began to leave and the commotion of the morning was dying down. As students began their days they went off the library and art class, preparing for Valentine’s Day. Whenever teachers had down time they decorated the halls and doors with hearts and Cupid. I saw students who I knew very well pass me as they went on their morning walks. I took the morning dying down as my queue to leave. As I walked out of the building that I had spent so many hours at I realized that I had found my focus and that I knew exactly what I was going to write about.