Congratulations Daniels Fund Scholars!

It was an exciting week at ACHS with both of our mentor leaders, and one of our mentors from last semester, being awarded the Daniels Fund Scholarship! This is a comprehensive scholarship that provides students the opportunity to obtain a four year college education at any accredited nonprofit college or university in the U.S. (see link at the bottom of page). Fernanda plans to attend the University of Colorado Boulder, Angel is deciding between Regis University and University of Denver, and Tony plans to attend the Colorado School of Mines. 

This week students spent time getting caught up with their work before spring break. Emily, our college navigator, worked with juniors on college and scholarship research. Juniors are putting together spreadsheets with all of their research so that they can reference them in the fall. Students ended the week with several art project centered around emotions, which will be featured in the blog next week. 

Happy Spring Break!!!

Congratulations Fernanda and Angel!  

http://www.danielsfund.org/Scholarships/  

Growth Mindset

This week at ACHS students continued learning about healthy relationships and belief systems. Students watched a series of performance arts videos, including slam poetry and hip hop theater, where artists discussed various aspects of their identities and how these experiences have shaped how they view the world, and how people see them. Students were then encouraged to use their multicultural identity maps to think about how their identities help to shape their unique own perspectives.
Later in the week students learned about growth mindset. Students watched a Ted Talk discussing Carol Dweck's research on intelligence and mindset, students then brainstormed ways in which their mindset could either be limiting or empowering.

Multicultural Identity Map

Limiting and Empowering Beliefs

Midterms!

We are officially half way through the semester at ACHS after a very short three day week! This week students had midterms in all of their classes, and they had extra study and homework time in their YESS classes. Students took a short midterm in their YESS class where they were encouraged to reflect on communication, conflict resolution, and the relationships in their lives. Students also wrote short essays on their identity and emotions.

Belief Systems and Identity

This week, students began a multi day lesson on beliefs and emotions. We started off the week listening to a piece of music, during which students were instructed to draw or write what they were feeling or thinking as they listened. Students then shared the drawings or writing in small groups. This led us into a discussion on why each person's experience with the music was different. Students then broke out into groups and came up with working definitions for culture, identity and beliefs system. Students then completed an exercise on identity and were then encouraged to think about their own identity through an art project. 

With midterms coming up next week, students were given extra time to complete homework and studying with their mentors. 

Identity art project