As not interesting as social science statistics are to some, they are vitally important to the understanding of people, their problems and causes of the problems. They give us relatively subjective insight into peoples' personal lives and reasons for behaviors, whether rational or not. Prof. McCallum mentioned several "predictable factors" that should aide in our understanding of the students we tutor at Urban Kidz. One of these factors involves expectations about adulthood. The only discussion I got into with a student there about this factor was a very good, optimistic one. She told me that she wanted to go to college after high school and become a surgeon after that. Actually she went into great detail about her life plans, and knew more of exactly what she wanted to do with her life than I do. In this conversation, she mentioned her family several times, specifically her mom and older sister (who goes to UAB). She talked like they had great influences on her and that she certainly had boundaries and expectations at home. Another girl I tutor is hyper and doesn't ever want to work. Even when she has a calmer day, I have trouble getting her to focus on her work for very long and often I have to explain a concept to her repeatedly. Now that I think about it, there is a sense of hopelessness in her when she realizes that she isn't "getting it." I believe that sometimes she just gets frustrated and thinks, why are you even bothering to re-teach me this? I'm never going to understand; just don't worry about me. When I think about it now, it is upsetting and I want to dispel those irrational thoughts she has. I haven't heard much about the "risk taking" factors, but the fact that I have only tutored girls probably has a lot to do with that.

Prof. McCallum's lecture certainly was not the most exciting lecture I have attended this year, but to me, it was one of the most interesting. I enjoy studying people, so I found most of the information he presented to be quite fascinating. Most of his factors were obvious, but the unintentional injuries factor drew my attention. I was glad to hear someone in the audience question him about his decision to include this somewhat random topic. Prof. McCallum replied with the fact that one-third of emergency visists to the local hospitals are results of unintentional injuries. He then went on to quesion whether or not these so called "unintentional injuries" really were unintentional or not. It is sad to hear of such poor living situations children today are in. Risk taking behaviors such as violence, substance abuse, and sexual behavior are all taken so lightly in the media these days, and children are so influenced by the media. It is no wonder they end up in situations that may result in unintention injuries. Working with the children at Urban Kidz has opened my eyes to the lives of other children with life styles different from mine. Yet most of us, as volunteers, have experienced similar situations that might fit with the criteria of risk taking behaviors. Just because we are not from low income families, doesn't mean that we have not lived through situatations of violence or families with drug abuses. It is easier to connect with the children when you share something in common with them. I have enjoyed learning about these kids, and the way they view their lives. I hope that I will find as time goes by, the children will be more open to sharing their thoughts, feelings, and ideas about life.

Although Prof. McCallum’s presentation made on Tuesday was not very entertaining, it was nonetheless informational and intriguing. While he was presenting and discussing different facts, especially when he was talking about the predictable factors, I found myself immediately relating the information to the students that I tutor at Urban Kidz, as well as my past experiences teaching dance for the Boys and Girls Club. One of the factors that particularly struck me was about the closeness of the child to their mother. In my work at both places there has been a child who was particularly close to her mother. At Urban Kidz, this child is rather passive; she is constantly distracted from her work and extremely sociable, but as far as activity is concerned she would rather talk than run around it seems to me. However, the opposite was true when I taught dance; we had a little girl who was extremely close to her mother, but during class she would run around and climb on the barres. She was the child that we had to look out for the most because she would be jumping on the backs of the other girls. I thought that this contrast was interesting; perhaps it is the type of relationship between mother and child, in addition to the closeness that has an affect on the child’s behavior.

I have heard a few of the children talk about their feelings about smoking to each other. One girl, in particular, was talking to another girl who already started smoking and was just talking about how disgusting cigarettes were and all of the risks that are involved with smoking. The girl who said this is a fairly good student, and interestingly enough, she is planning on going to college after high school. Her self-esteem is also considerably higher than that of the girl who already smokes, however she is a couple years younger.

Applying Professor McCallum's lecture to Urban Kidz is a very interesting approach. I was really excited about attending this event especially because we have been working with children who come from a low-income family. The information presented related greatly to Urban Kidz. One of the factors that McCallum discussed and that I saw when working with a child was expectations about adulthood. At my last visit, my partner and I asked a young boy what he wants to be when he grows up. He just shrugged his shoulders and replied that he does not know. His response surprised me because most children dream of all sorts of things. Growing up, I changed from one occupation to next. So to hear a young boy say that he does not know or care about his future is really sad; I feel awful for him. He showed such hopelessness. Other children at Urban Kidz have exhibited these factors in their behavior and attitude. At another visit, I was given the opportunity to meet one of the mothers. I met a young girl's mother who came to watch her daughter and see her progress. The young girl explained to me her relationship with her mother. She told me how her mother will not let her go out in the rain because she can catch a cold easily. This showed me how influential her mother is and also the degree of parental monitoring. As you can see, there are many correlations between the lecture and my work at Urban Kidz. It is interesting and very exciting to be able to see a connection. I look forward to hearing more about Professor McCallum's work.

Although I have never heard any of the children at Urban Kids talk about the risk taking factors such as violence or bringing weapons to school, I have heard on a few occasions heard them talk about hoplessness and other factors that Dr. McCallum talked about. One child in particular, I've realized after working with her a few times, has a very low self-esteem. I was working with her once and she didn't understand some of her work so she threw her pencil across the room and screamed she wouldn't ever understand. This also leads to not believing that she will go on to higher education because she doesn't think she can ever understand the work she's doing now. On another occasion, I was working with her and my phone rang. When I didn't take the call she asked me why I didn't. I told her that working with her was more important than a phone call at that moment. When I said that, she told me that no one cares about her, and that she didn't think any one thought she was important. I do know that she has a relationship with her mother, though. Her mother has come in to Urban Kids when I was there. It shows that her mother does care about her progress. I definitely have seen some connections to what Dr. McCallum was talking about.

Professor McCallum's provost forum about predictable factors in low-income families almost had a direct connection with one of the kids I work with at Urban Kidz. Although the forum was not very entertaining and "unfinished", at least in my personal opinion, I liked how it correlates with my own life. At Urban Kidz, there was a child who thought life ended when one is 51 years old. The kid mentioned that nothing happens to people that old and everything will happen in his near future. Keep in mind, this kid is only in elementary school. His expectations of adulthood are different than the ones I had when I was growing up; when I was looking forward to what I wanted to do in the future as a profession, this particular child just wanted a fancy car and house, but was not sure how he was going to get it because he was not sure if he was going to college.
Working with children at Urban Kidz has showed me that Prof. McCallum's social science statistics actually happen in the real-world setting that is just around the campus I have been privileged to attend. Although I have not come across any of the risk taking behaviors of violence, substance abuse, and sexual behavior out of the kids that I am associated with through Urban Kidz, I would not be surprised if later on in life some of those children will be at risk. Yes, that is a harsh rational, but in accordance to Prof. McCallum's statistics, these risks are a high possibility.

I must admit that Dr. McCallum’s presentation was very intriguing. I only hope that Dr. McCallum will host a follow up presentation to disclose his findings once he has the opportunity to further analyze the data. Due to the fact that I have been attending the women’s shelter rather than urban kids, I found it somewhat hard to correlate my service learning with Dr. McCallum’s study. However, I was able to directly relate the study with my work experience in the emergency room at the hospital back home. After Dr. McCallum’s initial reference to the, “predictable factors,” one boy who was a frequent visitor of the emergency room this summer stuck in my head for the duration of his presentation. He was a 17 year old African American boy who came to the emergency room 2 times by ambulance during my three months at the hospital this summer, once for a laceration inflicted during a knife fight, and then again for a drug overdose. Closeness to the mother and degree of parental monitoring are the two factors which I was able to apply to this me about this boy. Both times, upon his arrival to the hospital, I was responsible for contacting his family and both time I received the same response. Each time that I called his house his mother answered the phone and each time I explained the situation to her, only to hear her reply by saying, “He is grown and I am not responsible!,” followed by the dial tone. Both instances disturbed, but somehow I still placed some amount of blame on the boy, deeming him rambunctious, however, after Dr. McCallum’s presentation I feel completely different. His presentation of the statistics caused me to realize that the boy may not be to blame.

I was very interested to see how low-income kids and accidents are related. The biggest accident I ever had was falling out a tree house and fracturing my wrist. The children that McCallum studied had endured many accidental injuries. I see something very similar, but also very different in the women at First Light Women¡¯s shelter. I guess what I¡¯m seeing is the possible finished product of those low income children. Some traits that the children have are definitely in the women at first light. There is a feeling of hopelessness among these women. Most of them have been at First Light for months and see no hope of getting out anytime soon. They have already endured childhood. And to be quite honest, I know very little about there personal lives. Some of the women are very eager to talk about their lives while other women want to tell you every detail about life. I don¡¯t know anything about any of their upbringings. But, I do know that none of them wanted to be where they are. I have this feeling that many of the women grew up with a closeness to their own mother, because they all have very obvious maternal instincts. Every time there is a child in the shelter, he or she becomes everyone¡¯s child. They push the kid up to the front of the line so that he can get whatever he or she wants before the food runs out. They all call me names like ¡®honey¡¯ and ¡®sweetheart¡¯ and look at me as if I were twelve. Though I say that they seem to have a feeling of hopelessness, I can always tell the hopeful apart from the rest. Two women approached me last Wednesday to tell me the good news that they were leaving the shelter. One woman had found a place to stay in Indiana, her home state. Another woman told me that she had found an apartment in the YMCA. She said she had to stay in the shelter until May though, because apartment was not quite ready. Plus, she wanted to ¡°help out¡± some more. I assumed that the woman was a volunteer at First Light, I found out later that she was living there and just liked to help out. Whether these people are hopeless or not, their sense of community is respectable and inspiring. I wish everyone felt the need to help out their neighbors the way the First Light women do.

I had not really made a connection between low income families and accidental injuries until I went to this cultural event, but it makes so much sense. All of teh factors that he discussed I can see in children at urban kidz. Not to say that children of higher income families do not also have these problems, but I do think that they are more prominant in low income families. I think that the degree of parental monitering plays a huge role in accidental injuries of low income families. I know that many of the childern come to urban kidz because their parents are at work when they get out of school. There are many times when children will wonder in late to urban kidz. I know that their parents are at work so I wonder what they have been doing in the hour between the time they left school and the time they got to urban kidz. Any accidents that may happen during this time would be a directly connected to the lack of parental monitering. Another connection I made to lack of parental monitering was a conversation I overheard two boys having. The boys were talking about their father's guns. They both were talking about what kind of gun it was and where their daddy's kept them, they even talked about holding them. This may have been two adolescent boys making up stories trying to out do each other, but then again I'm sure that there was some truth in it. I am nineteen and I have never seen a gun that was not used for hunting, and I have never touched I gun. The thought of these two young boys having access to guns makes the connection to accidental injuries obvious.

Before attending Professor McCallum's lecture, I honestly had never considered the connection between low-income families and risk-taking behavior as predictors for accidents. In trying to apply the Professors ideas directly to Urban Kids, I find it a little difficult to give detailed examples because I haven't actually had very many personal conversations with the kids about any of the "predictable factors." However, I actually had a conversation with Amanda last week about parental involvement. The children who participate in the Urban Kidz program must be registered by their parents, and many of them have been going for several years, so the program in and of itself helps to encourage more parental involvement. Amanda knows many of their parents well enough to call the parents when she is having trouble or is worried about one of the kids. However, she said it takes quite awhile to develop that relationship with the parents, but that she works hard to get that close contact because parental involvement is crucial in helping the kids succeed and stay motivated. In light of Professor McCallum's lecture, I admire Amanda for her work in establishing close ties with the parents because it does seem that closeness with mother and the degree of parental monitoring are predictors of risky behavior and accidents. It will be interesting to see how the Professors research develops. As the results come forth, hopefully they can be used in trying to prevent risky-behavior and accidents by encouraging programs that will minimize the "predictable factors" that seem to lead to these negative results.

I would honestly say that i was disappointed with Professor McCallum's lecture on thursday. I was hoping to see some "numbers" and some results to the research that he has done. I was really amazed by the amount of people that were surveyed in his research and i would really like to see what the final outcomes are of his project.

I can really see some of the factors he discussed at Urban Kidz in my trips down there to help. One of the major ones i really see in the area of violence. Every time i am at Urban the children always want to wrestle and fight with one another and with the older tutors who are there to help. I guess that they have learned this from the environment that they are in day in and day out. Piossibly they see this at home or on the streets and they think that it is acceptable to "fight" and make fun of each other because they have never seen better before.

Professor McCallum's lecuture was somewhat disapointing, due to the fact that he was a boring speaker and very monotoned. He gave us an exceptional amount of data and statistical information, however i was disappointed that we were unable to have any conclusions. The size of the survey group is astronomical. Because of this big survy group i think he was able to collect as much data as he did.

I did not realize just how many factors can effect a child's life and their ultimate behavior. Factors such as closeness to their mother, and attempts at assault with a weapon can be major determinants of future behavior.

I would be interested to see his conclusion after collecting and sorting through all of this data.

I found Dr. McCallum's presentation very interesting because I have never really thought about the subject matter before. He pointed out that one of the questions asked to the subjects was "do you have any plans for your future?" I took this to mean are they planning to persue an education and job in the future. Looking back at some of my experience at Urban Kidz ministries, I remembered that one kid who was proboly no more than fourteen years old said that he just wanted to get a car and drive around picking up girls. Amanda mentioned that college might be a better goal to shoot for. The young boy stated he didn't want any part of this education, to him it was a waist of time. in Tying this together with what Dr. McCalum said, I believe that the community's role models play a role in shaping the judgment of these children. This bad judgement could possibly lead to injury or even a lack of apperciation for education.

As much as I enjoyed Professor McCallum's lecture on health and medicine in low income families, I was dissapointed to find out that the research wasn't finished. I think he's off to a great start, and I love how excited he is about the project, but I really wanted to hear the results. Maybe if I had known his work was unfinished before I attended, I wouldn't have been so let down, but I am definitely curious to see his findings.

Throughout the presentation I was thinking about the students I'm working with at Urban Kidz and what they've talked about, and what maybe they haven't. It's horrible to think that in this day and age a kid can't go to the doctor when they're sick, or get a cast on the arm they've just broken, but that's reality. I wish that all kids were taught the dangers of weapons and the correct way to solve problems, but they're not. Dr. McCallum's research has begun to show this, and I'm sure his final results will reflect the lack of attention and care that some of todays youth recieve.

I've heard a few stories from the group I work with at Urban Kidz that hinted towards these problems. I was talking to one of the girls a few weeks ago, and I asked her why she hadn't attended the program the previous week, and she said she had to stay home because her cousin got shot. Another time, one of the younger boys was talking to me about his uncle and how this guy carried around a gun all the time, and how he wanted to carry around a gun too. Guns actually seem to be one of the biggest problems they encounter.

Dr. McCallum also spoke about feelings of hopelessness and depression. And while I definitely see that in some of the kids I'm working with, I thought I'd also mention some of the feelings of hope I've encountered. One of the eighth graders that attends Urban Kidz is deaf, and she seems to have more hope than a lot of the other students. Although she can't hear, and she struggles in school because of this, she works so hard at what she does, and she's come very far because of this. She has a twin sister, and her sister seems to have similar values, so it could be the way they're being raised. They have an older sister that attends UAB, and they both aspire to recieve college degrees. So although times are rough for a lot of people, not all are hopeless.