Young Men's Club - 2/14/08

The boys were really testing my patience today. In their defense, because I they had done such a good job with the drumming in the last club, I had to add a new section to their routine in order to make it longer. And because the Winter recess starts in two days, we were pressed for time. So my patience was pretty short to begin with. I tried to get them together and get started on the the drum routine but they were taking a little while to calm down. Fernando, was especially difficult. After I reprimanded him, he proceeded to pout. At least he was quiet so that I could talk. Then, as I started to hand out the drumsticks, he refused to participate because he was too busy pouting. I decided then and there that I did not want to deal with Fernando's nonsense today. So I put him in time out for pretty much the rest of the club. He ended up being picked up and leaving early. Which was fine with me. Now, because the new section is a little tricky, it took quite a while for them to learn it. Justin, my incredibly well-behaved student, had trouble. He's simply not a natural at it. He was getting a little frustrated with his progress. The sad part is, he really wasn't bad. He was just getting mad at himself when he made a mistake. But I was able to work with him and just reassured him that he was doing fine. The usual suspects were actually doing fairly well for a while. But then they just got out of control. At one point, somebody passed gas. Which of course means game over at that age. So I let that one slide. But they kept interrupting and giggling at their own private jokes and carrying on so I finally had to sit them down for the remainder of the day. About 15 or 20 minutes. And it was not suprising that the remaining boys seemed to pick up the new drumming section a lot faster after that. After the club, I spoke with the key players one on one. Anthony is one who used to be very disruptive. He's gotten a lot better but he's still a bit of a bully. I told him that he was doing a lot of really good things but that he's got to cut out all of the bad stuff. I spoke to Nasir and Christian together. I flat out told asked them if they wanted to be a part of the show. They both said that they did. So then I told them that they had to act like they wanted to. I didn't have the energy to talk to Jourdan. One more day until the break.