Trust & Gratitude

Welcome back Adams City Eagle readers and YESS friends!

The past couple of weeks have been a whirl of chaos filled with relationship building and self centering thanks to our Trust and Gratitude activities and lessons.

During our Mentor Leader meeting, we decided that the relationships between the Mentors and Mentees were not at the levels they wanted them to be so we brain stormed activities to include in upcoming lessons where the partners could engage in interactive activities to learn more about each other and learn how to count on each other. One of the biggest challenges I face as a teacher here at ACHS is that I am on a cart so traveling with art projects (one of my life's biggest joys) can be a bit complicated because we are in another person's room and traveling with the projects on my cart is impossible a lot of the time. Leaving the projects in the room are also not an option because students in other classes are huge classes that are not always watched, leaving our projects that are hung on the wall vulnerable to being torn, drawn on, or pulled off the wall onto the floor, unfortunately. Because of this, the Trust Bridge lesson left us with coming up with creative ideas as to how to explore and build trust between one another and among the class as a whole. Our main activity got us all up and moving and it was quite the entertainment event for the bystander.

Along the hallway for about 8 feet was an obstacle course full of chairs and the directions left the mentors being blind folded on one side while the mentees were on the other side, directing them verbally how to get past the chairs without touching them. This tied in our lesson on communication from the previous week and connected the aspect of trust because of the vulnerability the blind folded person experienced, trusting that their partner would not lead them to trip over the chair or into the wall. We played 2v2 and the winning team to cross the finish line first got chocolate pastries I gave them as rewards, they were a hungry bunch so the competitiveness levels were at an all time high!

The short week before thanksgiving break got out, we explored the theme of Gratitude. We all shared our own version of what being thankful means in our own lives and related our gratitude towards people, creatures, health, and our experiences, both bad and good. At the end of the discussion heavy day, we made Thank You cards to give to a staff member, a family member, and a friend/peer. This tied in to analyzing who in our lives that we trust and who we have in our lives that we may not always have the opportunity to sit down and write how appreciative we are for the little things they contribute to the world and to us for their love, nourishment, and for always being there when times get tough and to share happiness.

The students wrote cards for a lot of their teachers but I also received some cards for the lunch ladies, security guards, and the janitors of ACHS, who are people who don't receive enough gratitude for what they do for our kids so I was really touched by the love our YESS classes were able to spread all over the school. I also received a handful of cards from students but one that I really loved was from team Chicken Nuggets named Brandon. He is a quiet student who doesn't often express himself so it was a real surprise to see how he felt about the class and what YESS offers him. Reading these from my students gave me a new recharged sense of passion and love for what I do and how reaching out to the ones who don't always advocate for themselves is always important. I'm so thankful for these young people in my life and it is a shining reminder that I learn from them just as much as they learn from me. Feeling so grateful.

Until next time,
Ms Castro

Educating the Masses

Welcome back, everyone! Last week in the YESS room at ACHS was a pivotal one, as we wrapped up the Race lesson we had been learning about over the past few weeks and dove into the beginning of Unit 2.

In effort to come full circle with our Race lesson, we recapped what really struck us to be the most interesting, important, or shocking throughout breaking down discrimination, stereotyping, structural racism, and implicit bias in our class. The mentee/mentor pairs in each class came up with PSA signs to hang around the school (still to be approved!). I expressed that I only have the privilege of teaching 80 students, I told them that I wish I could get this message of equality to every single student in the school but that just isn't the reality. So the next best move on our part was to use what we have learned to educate other people who do not have the fortune of being a part of our enlightening class discussions. We did this using PSA's!

For the PSA anti-racism posters the students had to meet 3 criteria: a clear message, an image, and a statistic. Once they were approved they worked together to finish them with vibrant color and interesting composition, while using their chrome books to inspire ideas. They came up with some of the most amazing visuals and messages to help inspire change in our school, because as we learned in an Ellen video we saw, one small ripple can create waves in the process of making the world a better place.

I was the only one to participate on onsie day at school and this chaotic picture was taken right when the bell rung, so it isn't the most easily understood photo... but that is what I love about it. This is team Chicken Nuggets and they have a special place in my heart.

This is a student I am very close to who has had her own negative experience with racial bullying both this year and last year. This lesson was both eye opening and therapeutic for her, and at times, she admitted feeling uncomfortable. But a success I will never forget is her explaining that she was really glad that our class was tackling this issue because people don't often take the time to have honest discussions about discrimination, learn the history of it, and have an opportunity to look at a situation through another person's perspective or hear them out. She used her voice in these discussions to express how racism has changed her view of the world, and how she wants to be a part of the fight against it. It was a huge growing moment to see her step out of her comfort zone to express these feelings and because of this it brought our class closer.

Please join us next week as we hit the ground running while exploring the beginning of Unit 2 where we will be further dissecting our sphere of influence and discussing effective communication!

Until next time,
Ms. Castro

Eggcelent Lessons on Race

Last week was monumental for us in the YESS room at ACHS as we continued to tackle the subject of Race. We learned key terms regarding Race through activities and online research, explored concepts through videos and discussion, and aimed to understand different perspectives through a Privilege Walk and an eggcelent activity that will be very memorable for my students for some time to come.

We made sure to touch on a relevant issue in the media surrounding the NFL players kneeling and what they were kneeling for. Colin Kaepernick was a key topic of discussion and respectful debates were had, but in the end we all learned the important of using your brain to understand the history of race and racism, and how using that knowledge to use your voice to confront  situations of injustice is important to creating a better world for everyone. One of my students brought up a quote by Kurt Cobain which reads "It is up to the youth to confront corruption." This really resonated with me because I told them that this knowledge could potentially be useless unless they use it to better themselves and to change the world in the seemingly little and big ways that I know they can, as long as they feel safe. From standing up for someone in the hallway to using their knowledge to know their rights and educate others about the importance of equality and social justice, any act of spreading equality and positivity matters through knowledge and action.

The videos that helped us break down race are found at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnfKgffCZ7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qD2K2RWkc

The activity that was the highlight of their week was called Privilege Point of View. In this activity, the students picked a word out of a bag that assigned them a role in which they were to view an event from their perspective. The roles were as follows:

• The Egg
• The Chicken
• The ACHS Janitor
• A random teacher teaching in a room on the other side of the building

I told them to not make any comments about which role they were, but to bring a pencil and paper over to the butcher paper to watch an event. They were instructed to start writing thier feelings from this role as soon as the event happened.

Hidden in my pocket was an egg and suddenly I threw it like a baseball and SPLAT! against the wall the egg exploded. This prompted gasps, laughter, and many different view points.

If you had the egg - you were hurt, scared, and dead
If you had the chicken- you were sad because your baby died
If you had the ACHS janitor- you were upset, annoyed, and angry
If you had the Random ACHS teacher on the other side of the building- You did not care much because it did not effect you

I had them come to their own conclusions about how this perspective activity related to privilege. Many students made connections to how you feel when you get pulled over by a police officer. Depending on who you are and the body you live in, you are either scared, upset, angry, or unaffected. We also explored the controversy behind this issue and related it to privilege.

This activity went smoothly in most of my classes... Aside from one class... Before I was about to throw the egg I was caught up in the suspense and excitement and I MISSED the paper, splatting raw egg all over the wall... The accident was a shocking and laughable moment but we still managed to have an in depth discussion and reflection despite the mishap. They even helped me clean it up afterwords! (Peep our Today I Choose poster in the top left!)

EW!!! Oh well, in order for learning to be effective sometimes things have to get messy.

Here is an example of one of my student's reaction and reflection representing the lesson this activity provided us:

Some other take away's that the students wrote down statements that threw shade at my throwing ability (or lack there of) so that was interesting, but I'm so happy the point was driven home in a meaningful and memorable way.


Until next week,
Ms. Castro