Kindergarten Buddies!

Mrs. Jones’ Psychology class has incorporated a buddy system with our kindergarten here at Beaver Local. Each student got to pick 1-3 buddies after meeting the class we would be visiting every week. Every Friday, the Psychology class trips down to the kindergarten wing of the school to visit their assigned buddies. Some days we get to just hang out and play around with our buddies and other days we have a specified activity to partake in with them.
My buddy’s name is Katie. She is the sweetest most energetic little girl I have ever met. She really likes drawing pictures of us and playing hide and seek. The first couple of trips down, she couldn’t quite remember my name. After quizzing her a couple times she got it down. Over the short period of time that I have known Katie, a strong bond has grown between us. She jumps with joy the moment she sees me, I suppose the child inside me does too. Whenever the day ends and it’s time for us to leave, Katie latches on to my leg and refuses to let me go. It’s the cutest thing. Eventually, she stands up and gives me the biggest hug I’ve probably ever gotten. She says goodbye and then we do it all again the following week.
In psychology, we’ve learned about how memories and our upbringing shapes us as people. Is our behavior guided by experiences inside of us? A task we were given was to get our buddies to tell us a memory or memories they have. Doing so, we learned a little bit about them and in turn, we got to share our memories too.
We currently are learning about conformity and obedience. Conformity is how people comply with standards, rules, and laws. Obedience is compliance with an order or request to another’s authority. These two ways of thinking are displayed all throughout the kindergarten classroom. Buddies consider us high school students authoritative to them. They obey and comply with almost everything we say. The children also conform to each other. When one child sees another doing something, that child wants to conform and do the same.
I think this mini program for the class is a great idea. It leaves a great impact on the kids and on the high school students. We get to see how the things we learn in class take place in real world situations. Going to visit our buddies is the highlight of my week, every week.