Bon Air Minus the Prof.

This week went amazingly!

I am so proud of my group and I for being able to lead a healthy and effective discussion this week in the absence of Professor Dolson. (Hope you feel better soon!!)

I cannot speak for everyone but going into Bon Air without Professor Dolson was a bit nerve-wracking for me, especially since her email explained that I was to facilitate the discussion. During our session thus far, Professor Dolson has done such a great job of wrangling in the conversation when it begins to venture far from where it should. For this reason, I was worried that I would be unable to do the same because I was unsure if the boys would respect me as much as they do our professor. But… as the night went by, I started gaining confidence in the girls and I because it wasn’t at all like I worried it would be.

To begin, we did introductions and our mindfulness minute. Some of the boys kept their eyes open and I started thinking of why they might do that. Was it because they saw the lack of an authority figure and thought they didn’t have to do it? Or was it that they felt less “cool” because if they did follow my direction and closed their eyes the other residents would laugh at them? For whatever reason, I was feeling uneasy and hoped the rest of the night would not carry on like this.

Following the mindfulness minute, I explained the first prompt and we split up into groups. My conversation went well and we all ended up talking for longer than expected. When we regained our grasp of time, we came back to the table and ended up having some amazing group discussions. It was at this point that I was feeling better about our situation. The group discussion took up most of the rest of our time because it was such a great conversation, where all the boys were engaged, and none of us wanted to “kill the vibe” so to speak. We had roughly five minutes left to discuss the second prompt so we agreed to keep our partner-up time short and return to the big table. When we came back, we de-briefed about what they should have ready for the next week and what our ultimate goal is for this program.

At the end we parted ways, with all of us girls going to the snack cabinet together. There, we did a victory, circle high five because we were all so proud of one another. I’m so glad with this week’s outcome. Hope for more weeks like this one to come!!!