Week 9-Peer Relationships

Posted on March 24, 2008

I was really excited to write about my peer relationship model this week. The name of my model is People to People. It was inspired by some of the relationships that my students have made without my help. This all started when one of my students, who uses a laptop to communicate and do work on, was not actually paying attention or was not particularly interested in what the teacher was saying, thought it would be okay to play video games. One of his class mates thought this was really cool so he followed his wheelchair into my student's study hall in the area I work. This student asked if it would be okay if he came into my student's study hall to play with him and do some work. This made me start thinking and this is how People to People began.
I thought that students could come into my structured study hall on their own will and connect with students who have the same interests or just help them with their work. I selected six students to try this out first. Well is was a success and grew to ten students based upon word of mouth from the students already in it. The students inspired me to come up with a plan. I thought it could be cool for this to become a half credit elective course. People to People would not require a lot of staff or time to prepare. The students and I are currently writing up a proposal and a presentation to get People to People in the course selection book for next year. We know that this process may take a long time but we are up for the challenge and realize that we are learning along the way. I will keep you updated along the way.