Though I have strayed from my initial approach to the group of implementing themes with which to explore the life course, I remained curious about the reactions I would get from some of the activities from the residents. Today I decided to introduce the group to one of the original themes, just for the day. I wanted to make sure we explored a couple of the family activities that I compiled, because I wanted to hear the types of discussions that would result from them. I did not introduce a warm-up activity for today, and instead jumped right in and introduced them to the exercise. I told them that I would like them to create family portraits. I said that their family could include friends, pets, anyone they considered to be their family- and that they could focus on their current family, part of their family, or their family of origin. It was up to them, whatever seemed to be the most important to the development of their life course.
Overall, the drawings ended up looking very different from each other. One resident started out with a drawing of her family of origin. Once she realized that she had finished significantly before anyone else had, she branched off with her own family on the same page. Another resident drew his family tree more like a genealogy chart, representing each family member with either a female or male sign. One other person decided to represent her family by illustrating what each of her family members enjoy, and she covered the page with it.
I was asked twice today about what my purpose is for the class- and both times I responded that it is just serving as an exploration of communication, and that the purpose was just for the group to be a constructive and enjoyable experience. I will continue to answer with the same response every time they ask me, but I know that somehow they still aren't apt to believe me, and continue to think I'm carrying out some sort of experimentation on them (which is precisely the reason why I reconsidered the Human Subjects Review). Although this group remains to be very much an experiment, I do wish I was more successful in convincing the handful of them who still remain skeptical about my motives. It is interesting though, that the critical residents have been some of the most regular in attendance since the group first convened.
Anyway, despite the doubts, today proved to me that the group has been at least halfway successful in accomplishing its goals. Once everyone had finished their family trees, we went around the table sharing what each person came up with. Understandably, giving the residents a chance to talk through their reasonings and to talk a bit about their family life turned out some really interesting conversations. It's hard for me to understand how some of the residents still don't see the meaning in the group when these activities continue to facilitate such interesting discussions. I highly doubt that even one of the residents hasn't learned something about his/herself through at least one of these activities.
Overall, the drawings ended up looking very different from each other. One resident started out with a drawing of her family of origin. Once she realized that she had finished significantly before anyone else had, she branched off with her own family on the same page. Another resident drew his family tree more like a genealogy chart, representing each family member with either a female or male sign. One other person decided to represent her family by illustrating what each of her family members enjoy, and she covered the page with it.
I was asked twice today about what my purpose is for the class- and both times I responded that it is just serving as an exploration of communication, and that the purpose was just for the group to be a constructive and enjoyable experience. I will continue to answer with the same response every time they ask me, but I know that somehow they still aren't apt to believe me, and continue to think I'm carrying out some sort of experimentation on them (which is precisely the reason why I reconsidered the Human Subjects Review). Although this group remains to be very much an experiment, I do wish I was more successful in convincing the handful of them who still remain skeptical about my motives. It is interesting though, that the critical residents have been some of the most regular in attendance since the group first convened.
Anyway, despite the doubts, today proved to me that the group has been at least halfway successful in accomplishing its goals. Once everyone had finished their family trees, we went around the table sharing what each person came up with. Understandably, giving the residents a chance to talk through their reasonings and to talk a bit about their family life turned out some really interesting conversations. It's hard for me to understand how some of the residents still don't see the meaning in the group when these activities continue to facilitate such interesting discussions. I highly doubt that even one of the residents hasn't learned something about his/herself through at least one of these activities.
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