Speed Matching & The March for Black Women of Denver

Last week was exciting and eventful from beginning to end.

We spent the better part of the week doing our Speed Matching sessions where students were stationed at paired desks around the room and were expected to interview each other for 5 minutes each. This week was important attendance wise because these interviews determined who they were matched with for the rest of the year. After each interview they took private notes on how their interview went and once every mentee interviewed every mentor, and vise versa, students were given a request sheet to explain why they would benefit from being paired with their chosen mentee. While students were out of rotation we played team builder games and played music to give the interviewers privacy... Christmas music, might I add :-D It was a blast.

The week was great but the highlight of the week undoubtedly related to taking my students to the March for Black Women of Denver on Saturday. The event outlined as follows:
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Join Black Women and Women of Color as we March and Mobilze Against Oppression. 

2018 Agenda sheds light on the impact if Youth Violence, Sexual Abuse, and Deportation on Black and Brown Women.

Guest Host Tish Beauford!

Come prepared to march! Hear from Powerful Speakers! Artists! Spoken Word! Musicians and more! 

Featuring: Jeanette Vizguerra - Kerrie Joy - Danette Hollowell - Benzel Jimmerson - Lady Speech - O'Neil Rudolph and more!
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My favorite speaker was spoken word poet, Kerrie Joy. I have seen Ms. Joy at many other Marches in Denver where she recites one of my favorites by her- I'm Rooting for Everybody Black. Here is a link to her poem as recited at the MLK march below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyzVW6XBtCM

It was inspiring to say the least, and watching my students listen intently while holding signs was truly a milestone in my career. They were engaged, they were passionate, and most importantly, they were showing up to make a change in this world- which is everything that not only YESS stands for, but everything my own personal soul stands for. The combination of youth activism and self-love is a beautiful recipe for radical change in this world.

After the march Lizbeth (sophomore) and Shalayah (senior) and I went out to eat at City O then went to a bookstore where we all picked up a copy of The Hate U Give which is about sixteen-year-old Starr Carter who is the only witness to her friend Khalil’s fatal shooting at the hands of a police officer. On top of dealing with the emotional aftermath of such an awful event, being at the scene throws her into the middle of the investigation. As the attention on the shooting grows nationally, what she does—or doesn’t—say, could change everything. The Hate U Give also deals with friendships in the face of subtle racial tensions, the struggle to keep family united in the face of differing views, and what it really means to pursue a better life for yourself and the ones you love.

I'm excited that they are so involved in Social Justice enough to spend their Saturday making their voices heard at a March and enough to pick up a book related to the issue to read in their free time. My faith is constantly restored in the youth when I am hanging out with my students, they are strong, resilient, and their voices matter. I hope whoever is reading this can feel inspired by them in the same way I consistently am.

Until next week,
Ms. C

Shared Agreements & SEL

Welcome back everyone,

We are officially in that part of the year where the newness of the school year has worn off and we are settling into our routines. With that being said, we have started digging in and developing our classroom culture before tackling our mentor/mentee pairing. Before pairing begins we established class expectations specific to each class outlining what they expect from themselves, from each other, and from myself. We outlined the things that we need to be successful in our individual roles (as seen below) and introduced the foundation of all of our lessons- Social Emotional Learning!

The kids split up into 5 different groups based off of the domains and came up with creative ways to define each one and use real life examples. This was a fun exercise as it got the students up and moving to interact with different students from other tables and each one of them had a role in the presentation of each poster. Some of them got really creative with it, I'm excited to decorate my room with their new posters!

Until Next week,

Ms. C

Spirit Week & Identity Presentations

Last week was the best week of the 18-19 school year so far! I wish every week was spirit week because it added an extra vibe of excitement and positivity to all of our classes and just the over all culture of ACHS.  I loved coming to school in 90's gear, dressing up for a skype interview (pajamas on bottom and business on top), and dressing out for the senior class color. The pep rally was awesome and so was the powder puff game! The No Place for Hate club stayed in my room for an hour every day after school last week to prepare for the homecoming parade, they put so much work into their float.

In regards to the lessons going on in C251, the kids wrapped up their Identity Tattoo projects and presented them on Friday. Throughout the week we did a variety of get to know you Question of the Day's as well as activities and warm ups to get to help them know themselves. I think that the amount of times that I heard students say "I don't know what to say or put because I don't know who I am," was really revealing to me as to how important this idenitity work is that we are doing at YESS. We also did an exercise where students were to answer a series of 4 questions and based on how they answered them, their subconcious responses revealed the way they feel about certain topics in life. For example:

Personality Test - Subconscious trick to help reveal more of yourself to yourself

-Pick a color that identify with, a color you could see yourself as. Pick it and describe why you would pick that color. Use description words.

-Pick an animal you most identify with and describe it. If you had a spirit animal or an animal you relate to what would it be

-Your favorite way to be in water (showers, ocean, pool), what way do you enjoy the most to be in water and why

-Picture yourself sitting in a dark room you’re sitting in a chair, since its dark and your senses are out of wack you don’t know how big the room is ( tiny closet or stadium, you can’t tell). You’re comfortable, not in pain, just sitting in the chair… but way off in the distance you see a light… you don’t know exactly how far away it is, you don’t know if it’s a lightning bug or a light bulb, but you’re sitting in a chair in the dark in a room looking at this light… how do you feel about this situation in this scenario? Picture yourself there and write how you feel

------------------------- Response Interpretation Reveal---------------------------------------

1.     How you want or how you feel others perceive you – what you give off to people (example - blue, an oura of being a cool chill guy) (green, unique, down to earth, fun)

2.     How you really are on the inside. Who you truly are

3.     How you feel about relationships

4.     How you feel about death and the afterlife – too many unknowns, uncertainty creates fear inside of you? What about death scares you? What about it makes you curious, does it make you feel alive?

Here are some photos from the week as well! The first one is from Era (90's) Day, Second is a photo after the kids got done presenting projects (more pics of those to come next week), and the third is a special moment where I helped a student surprise her boyfriend by asking him out to homecoming in the beginning of class. He had to check either yes or no on the giant heart to be her date and he checked yes, it was precious and everyone clapped and a few even cried! Gotta love high school!

Until next week,
Ms. C

Intro to Identity Tattoos

Last week went by in the blink of an eye with a Tuesday-Friday work week and the introduction of our first project- Identity Tattoos! It was also a milestone week because all of my seniors had the chance to meet Emily, our YESS College Navigator.

The Coat of Arms lesson has been modified for the high school level with a project that is more fit for their interests and age group. In this project they are exploring who they are and what is important to them. Some key terms that were broken down related to material and non-material possessions and students were challenged to explore what they are most passionate about and what they value most. They are to take these material objects and concepts and turn them into a composition that mimics that of a tattoo, complete with hidden descriptive words and their favorite quote/life motto in the banner. Luckily, I had many examples from last year to show them that you do not need to be an artist to have fun or to make a good grade on this project, you just need to put in some time and effort into expressing yourself creatively.

We also broke down the benefits of being creative! We took cues from this image I found online:

We ended the week with our first go at a meditation session as well. Some students were reluctant and I accepted that as a natural response and encouraged them to do what feels comfortable but that with time they will learn to ease into this new unfamiliar skill.

With a good chunk of the week being instruction, they were given this current week as well to finish their tattoo designs and will be presenting soon. I cant wait to see the kind of visuals they come up with to represent themselves! I encouraged going off the template and creating bigger pieces as long as they meet all of the requirements, I love that there is a lot of freedom and autonomy with this project and the kids seem to be taking advantage of that. 

For those wondering, No Place for Hate is getting off to a great start. We have been meeting every day after school- that's right... Every... Day... to prepare for homecoming week/BMX Assembly on the 12th/Homecoming Parade. As it turns out, running a club is a LOT of behind the scenes work. Spreading our club's message is so worth it, though!

P.S- We also have a class competition going on, but more on that in my next entry...

Until next week,

Ms. C

Community, Senior Adoptions, No Place for Hate

Welcome back everyone,

Last week was so busy and was definitely the first time that I truly felt that school was back in full swing. On top of talking about community with each of my classes we did many get to know you games and ended the week with the yard toss activity where we made a huge web across the room and shared out facts about each other. During our group activity surrounding what it means to be in a community I learned about the different communities they are a apart of and also realized that a struggle for them was critically thinking about the challenges of being a part of a community. We related community to our class, the school, commerce city, our country, and the world- the bigger picture of humanity as a community.

After school on Thursday was the very first No Place for Hate club meeting! We did introductions and recruited many new members of all ages from around the school. With homecoming around the corner, we really have to get a lot of planning done in regards to our float and fundraisers.

Last week was also Senior Adoptions after school Although I was here last year, this was my first time to participate as I had many seniors asking if I would be at the ceremony. I ended up adopting 19 senior daughters and sons! I am so honored to be chosen to be their senior mom, I held up one hand before signing the contract and promised to do everything in my power to support them during their last year here. Looks like I will be giving out many Christmas presents, lol!!!

Until next week,

Ms. Castro

What is YESS and Who Are We?

AAAAND we're BACK here at ACHS in C251 for our second week of the 18-19 school year!

Lately my classes and I have been having a blast getting to know each other by playing get to know you games and filling out student cards that helps me to understand them better as scholars and as young humans outside of school. At the end of the week last week I quized their memory about the YESS program in ACHS and what it is all about, many students won reeces and kit kats!

We started the year by having one on one meetings with each student to identify whether or not the program would be a good fit for them considering what they are bringing to the table transcript wise and experience wise so that I could formulate a list of kids for the counselors regarding who needed to be removed to pursue their elective passions elsewhere. This took up most of last week but after those were finished we moved onto the Question Ball game where each student caught the ball and answered the question beneath their right palm. After all of my classes completed this we have moved onto what I had planned for today, which was our Heads Up team games! 

I made enough home made lemon cupcakes over the weekend for all of the winning teams in my classes to have some incentive to compete for and boy did this game not disappoint! They were getting really competitive with the points and for a Monday, it sure was exciting and rowdy in here. I will save the rest and possibly even include a video in next weeks blog!

Wish us luck that we will get the rest of our rosters evened out so we can move onto YESS lessons!

Until next week,

Ms. C

Welcome Back!

Hey there Eagles / Eagle supporters!

We are back in action over here in the Adams City YESS room! I could not be more excited about having more classes this year to reach out to, personalities to connect with, and souls to watch grow.

Over the past few weeks schedules have been changing tremendously, meaning that the students who I was supposed to have from last year are not in my classes and the new student requests are not accurate, but HEY! We learn how to roll with the punches over here at ACHS. The beginning of the year at this school always challenges me to test myself as far as my ability to be flexible and patient, so I have been doing my best while getting to know each student individually, whether they will be in my class for the year or not because either way I share the building with them and would like them to know that my room is always a resource for anyone. The word about the YESS program has spread much more than last year so it has been encouraging to hear of students requesting this class due to what they heard of through friends and kids coming into class with a positive image painted in their mind of what the program can offer them. Also, side note, the incoming freshman are so bright eyed, bushy tailed, and adorable! I can't wait to get to know them all.

Here's to hoping rosters get solidified so I can begin to hand out syllabi and get the curriculum rolling! Thanks for checking in with our start to the year!

Until next time,
Ms. C

p.s here is a community resource map of Adams City that was compiled over the summer months to help out students and families in the community, ch-ch-check it out!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QkGbHKP6k9f29WTVsXn45NPCXJneNgV6XwEMA7eLOe8/edit