Blog 3

What are the particular issues, tasks or problems you have encountered or anticipate during your site visits?

Going to Crenshaw has been an incredible experience. We have been going there for a couple weeks now and we are starting to develop really good relationships with some of the kids. I've noticed that all the students are getting more and more comfortable with each other. We have noticed that we usually can't get started until 10-15 minutes in, because the students are walking in late and by the time they are settled in we've wasted valuable time considering there is another group we are sharing time with.

I am a big fan of the barbershop setting, but I will say it gets very distracting between the noise and having kids get up halfway through a discussion to get a haircut. Otherwise the barber himself is great because he usually chimes in every now and then.

We start out with a 30minute discussion about an aspect of the music industry. For example this past week we covered: Samples. Samples, are the usage of older songs in the beat. We played some music from some of their favorite producers such as Kanye West who have used samples; they are shocked to know that the beats generally come from older songs...

Later on we break down into groups based on the department of the label they are in. Since the consistency of some of the kids attendance is shaky between sports and work we have trouble incorporating the non-regulars week to week. Usually we have 3-4 departments that stay focused and are pumping out work. However, those are the groups that are 2 people. The other groups who have 5-6 kids in it sometimes lose focus because we can't oversee each group.

I know that the kids learn a lot from week to week, which is great. But it is tough to keep the newcomers in the loop and productive.