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Kanani Brown
is the Cultural Enrichment Coordinator at the Boys and Girls Club (BGC)
in the city of Seaside. She is also a teacher’s aid at Marshall
School on Fort Ord. She has been working with youth for several years
in the community at the BGC. Through RUAP Kanani has been the direct
site liaison for a Shauna Scott, a CSUMB student who has begun a series
of choral workshops at the BGC. Through her collaboration with Shauna,
they have been able to bring a musical enrichment project to the club.
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Steven
Russell, RUAP Community Liaison, interviewed Kanani Brown:
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| SR:
How long have you been working for the Boys and Girls Club? KB: Thirteen years. |
| SR:
How do you feel RUAP is fitting into the club so far with the choral workshop? KB: Well I really don’t know a lot about the organization but from working with Shauna (CSUMB Human communications Major Shauna Scott) I think it is fitting well within the things that we are trying to instill into the kids that come here. |
| SR:
What are some of your observations from the workshops? KB: Laura (BGC Program Director, Laura Kelly) had told me that Shauna hadn’t worked with kids that much so at first sat in the circle, and just kind of tried to play it by ear what she was going to do with the kids. Later I just kind of would pull myself out of the circle. But even when I was in the circle, they still acted the same. I don’t know where they were coming from. At first I didn’t know if it was her and they knew she was knew or what. Even with me sitting in here they would still acting the way they were. |
| SR:
Which was pretty rowdy. KB: Yes, disrespecting each other, and I get that sometimes when I’m in here, but I nail that pretty quick, which I did. |
| SR:
Do you think that changed over time? That relationship between the kids
and Shauna curbed some of that acting out during the sessions? KB: I think so once she put her foot down. She did that a couple of times and they changed and really started to listen and wanted do the stuff she was trying to teach. I mean I told them, if you don’t want to be here you can go, because you’re wasting your time and her time. |
| SR:
What were some of the positive things about Shauna’s engagement of
students in this type of new project for them here at the club after school? KB: Some of them looked forward to coming here after school and getting into the choir. I had kids coming up and asking “Are we going to have choir? Are we going to have choir?” Shauna would come before and get them ready sometimes. And I would let them play on the organ sometimes. |
| SR:
What were some of the issues that needed to be addressed during the sessions?
Do you have any suggestions to make it more successful? KB: That she come and makes the announcements. I make the announcements to get the kids in, but I think if the person who is offering the workshops they need to pump it up themselves during our club meetings. Have them explain what they will be doing, and what the kids are going to learn. Her recruiting, spending more time on the game floor or just kind of talking to the kids and trying to get to know them. But now that we have a little bit of an establishment some of the kids will think you know, “There’s Shauna! Let’s go sing choir! It’s fun let’s go!” I know she’s real busy, but I think that really makes a difference. |
| SR:
So you feel the more informal time she has with the students will make
the choral time she has with them more successful? KB: Yeah, I think it would. |
| SR:
Overall do you feel these workshops were successful it getting kids into
chorus and learning about singing? KB: Yes I think they were successful, at first when she first started it didn’t look like she really have a lesson plan of what she wanted to do. So the kids were kind of scattered and didn’t know what they were going to do or what they were going to achieve. I know she told them they were going to be performing at the end. I told Laura (laughing), I don’t know about them performing, but all in all it came together in the end. |
| SR:
Do you see yourself working with RUAP in the future? KB: I would love to. I don’t do many filed trips with the arts and crafts group, but I would love to get a small group of kids over to CSUMB to see some of the performance and stuff happening at the college. |
| SR:
Do you have anything else you would like to add? KB: I enjoyed working with Shauna Scott, she was fun and very bubbly. And it was nice having the pizza party. It was great seeing her interact with the kids in a different way outside of the structure in the workshops. |
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