Boys & Girls Club- Week 4

Week four was, well , I did not have an experience during week for because the club was closed for Spring Break. Instead I attended the club twice this week to make up for the missed time. In this blog I will discuss my experience on Tuesday, and in the next one I will talk about Wednesday.
Tuesday was an interesting day for me. When I arrived I spend some time visiting with the youngest members of club- my favorite group. They, as always, were happy to see me. I was surprised to see how many of them remembered my name and recognized me immediately, they remembered the games we had played during some of my previous visits and immediately tried to draw my attention towards them. I would have liked to spend the day with them once more, but I had firmly decided I needed to visit with different age groups on that day.
Next I spend some time with the 11-12 year olds, however, they were not in the usual room they spend the day in, and instead they were playing pool and other such games in the big common area. I spend some time playing a game of pool with a few of them, and getting to know them, but what really drew my attention that day was a class which was being thought on the side of the play area. The club has a few education geared programs. One of them is called Citi, and as the name suggests, the program is sponsored by Citi Group. Basically, the kids are though concepts such as the power of branding, savings, and some management techniques. This however, was not some cynical scheme to get kids hooked on Citi Group products. Yes of course the odds are that when they think of banking activities they will associate that with Citi, but that merely seemed like a small perk for the firm. The program is geared toward the introduction of important financial concepts to kids, a process which I believe will greatly benefit them, and their environment in the long run. Kids are thought to think of the power of saving. For example they are given an option of spending their money on ice cream and other such pleasures of life, or saving the money and being able to purchase a bicycle. Some very important concepts come across thought the class and I could not help it but think of how this is a very beneficial way for factual knowledge to enter popular culture. I always find myself wondering of the ways in which this process occurs, and for ways of improving it, but this program seemed to be a prime example of a successful method for conducting this. I gathered some material from the courses and spoke with the person responsible for teaching them, and I am looking forward to an opportunity to analyze them a bit more.