From: Mercedes Monaco
Submit: Post Field Note
VisitDate: 11/8/96
Adult-Run:
Children-Run: Selected
Collaborative:
Unclear-Philosophy:
Bottom-up:
Top-down:
Unclear-Approach:
Informal: Selected
Formal: Selected
Unclear-Type:
LearningArea:
Date: 11 Nov 1996
Time: 14:45:28
Remote Name: tsb-62.ucsc.edu
Mercedes, 21 Silvia, 3 Maurice Louis
Silvia was the only child at Barrios Unidos this day. She was running around teh room and seemed to be looking for attention so I asked her if she wanted to play computer games. She told me she wanted to do a puzzle so I started up the Lion King game. She didn't know how to use a mouse. I tried to show her, but it seemed to b e too difficult for her. After a while I would just ask her to choose what to do and would control the mouse for her.
At one point one of the guys from Barrios Unidos came in and said hi to her. She wouldn't talk to him and when he left she said she didn't like it when he said "Hi Silvia". As the day went on I noticed that any time a male would try to interact with her, she would turn away from them and hide somehow. One time Maurice came up to her adn she reacted by hiding behind her chair. He left while she was still hiding. After a moment she turned around and said curtly, "What do you want!" But when she turned around only I was there. She looked really surprised and confused and said, "I'm sorrry, I thought you were a boy."
Later we began to play connect four. She seperated all of the peices, taking about twenty for herself and about twelve for me. She put her peices in a bag and told me that those were her peices and these were mine and that we weren't going to play with her peices, but we would share mine. When all of my peices were used, we would just start over. I asked her why we didn't share her peices and she told me we were sharing mine. While we were playing she whispered to me that there was a monster outside (she pointed to the door of the lab) and that we needed to be quiet because he could hear us. (She always referred to the monster as a male). At one point in the day she asked me where the guy with the long hair was. We started talking about Maurice and I asked her some questions about him. She told me she liked Maurice because he made her mad. Suprised, I said, "You like him because he makes you mad?" She said yes and then a monster comes and hits me and beats me and eats me. Very surprised and confused, I asked if she was afraid of the moster and she said yes. Then she told me it was ok because her mom and dad would protect her.
After a while she told me that she wanted to play that I was the mommy and she was the little girl. I thought this would change what we were playing, but all that changed was that she called me mommy constantly for the next twenty minutes. "Mommy, its your turn mommy" After a while I began to feel uncomfortable. I asked her if she remembered what my name was. She just stared at me and I told her it was Mercedes. She kept referring to me as mommy. About seven minutes later I asked her again and told her my name again and she said that I was supposed to be the mommy and her the little girl. We continued to play with the connect four game (With our own varying rules). She and I were putting in the peices at the same time and she became upset when one of my peices landed before hers. She turned away, crossed her arms and pouted. After a few moments she turned around and said, "I'm sorry mommy, I'm sorry I got so mad at you."
It came time for me to leave and I told her I had to go to school and she argued with me for a while. I got my stuff together and said bye and started to go but she walked in front of me down the hall, trying to stop me. She stood in front of the front door with her arms spred open saying I couldn't go. Finally, I just kept telling her I had to go to school and she very reluctantly let me go.
I left feeling very disturbed. There was a lot of strange interactions. I'd like to hear what other people think about it before I feel like I can reflect much on it.
Why did she have such a hard time interacting with guys? What was the monster thing all about? What about the insisting on playing the mommy game? and her not letting me leave?
Please, I'd like lots of feedback on this one.