Adams City High School YESS Program : Beliefs, Culture, & Setting the Stage for Race Unit

Hey!!Its Shalayah the mentor leader for 7th period!!!

Last week we talked about beliefs and culture. And identified the culture we have in the classroom. Everyone shared their thoughts about what they thought culture meant. And then Ms.Castro divided everyone into groups with their mentors and we made posters identifying what different cultures there are , what all consist in a culture , and where these different cultures come from. Through this activity we learned what culture means so that this could be the foundation of our learning before we get deeper in the race unit lessons.

We also introduced circle ups where we get in a cirle with our chairs and face each other. then we vote on a talk piece and pass it around, the person with the talk peice is the only on who can talk. Everyone else catches a bubble and listens. It was hard to learn to not respond to other people and to keep our words to under a minute. We answered questions that had to do with a funny story from child hood on Monday and by Wedesday we were answering our own thoughts on Racism/Discrimination. It got serious very fast but everyone was chill with each other and respectful. Castro talked about the connected between anxiety and the circle up, we worked hard to be present and not be worried about being judged or anxiety. It brought us closer as a class.

And since it was spooky week , we celebrated Holloween by telling scary stories and having a costume contest. being a mentor leader we have meetings on thursday and talked about the race unit. We talked about how we were gonna talk about this topic to where everyone in all classes are comfortable. We talked about how were gonna address it and make sure no one is being nffended while also being educated. We also wanna feel comfortable talking about our experinces.