Afterzone Recruitment Fair

On Monday October 6^th the Non-Profit organization After Zone held Del Sestos 2^nd annual program fair. I was called in to make a small presentation to 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade students at Del Sesto Middle School. My executive director thought it would be a great opportunity to show my face and try and attract students to joining Beat The Streets Providence wrestling team. I was not really sure what to expect or told what I should do to bring students in.

I arrived at Del Sesto Middle school, I was then told we would give a presentation to each grade group. A little nervous no because I really had 5 minutes to prepare what I would say. I am very familiar with Beat The Streets mission, goals and vision and had a small background knowledge of their previous accomplishments. I used what I knew and added in a cool story and things I would want to hear, they are kids it need to sound exciting and cool. So the 8^th grade group came in, followed by the 7^th graders and finally the 6^th graders. My presentation for the 8^th graders was shaky, the 7^th grade presentation was pretty good, but my 6^th grade presentation I felt most proud of.   

After I presented to each grade they had a chance to come on stage and sign up and grab permission slips to join a program of their choosing. I set up a table where all the paper work they may need was available. My biggest selling point was the Beat The Streets Promotional Video. These students were now able to see what wrestling looked like at the college and Olympic level. Very exciting video, the kids loved it and it really sold the sport more than my speech. I had 60 kids sign up that were interested. The 1^st day of practice I had 23 kids ready to start Del Sestos 1^st wrestling team. 

                                                       Beat The Streets Providence 


                                                           

Yoga in School?

Before watching the video of Resilient Kid doing yoga in the classroom, I knew this was a beautiful idea that children would benefit tremendously from.  I believe in learning activities to promote active learners in the classroom, even after school activities. Yoga on its on has many powers on body and mind, finding happiness from within and mindfulness.

Brilliant idea to make time in kid classroom time allow a time period to do yoga and even to apply yoga to classroom lessons. Active learning especially at such a younger age in a class room is very beneficial. The classroom is now working together as a unit through exercise and activities through yoga. Looking at the students in the video they seem very happy, smiles when explaining yoga by students are also shown. As told be Resilient Kids and Vanessa the grades are improving, decrease in behavior referrals decrease in suspensions, and attention span grew allowing to remain comfortable in their seats. With Resilient Kids students are found to be more calming, mindful, face challenges in and outside the classroom better, stress decrease and working memory increased.  

Teacher Student Relationship

I love this video. This is a video that should be trending to schools not only to teachers, to districts, members of the school board and parents. It is easy to blame the teachers since they are the ones "teaching".the teaching and learning experience is shared by both teacher and student.

Teachers carry many and most of the responsibility in the classroom. They must remember this is not just a class and should be treated as a environment for learning and enjoyment. The reason that most of the responsibility remain in the teachers hand is when they signed up to be a teacher, which means to relate knowledge and educate children. Yes it is a tiring job but that what you sign up for and know many hardships come with teaching youth important life attributes. Once the foot is in the door and teaching begins, teachers should get to know their students also dont hesitate to learn from your students. They must push kids in the right direction, which is needed because some students never been pushed, so teachers are also mentors as well. One key idea is teach kids as if that is your child, in an idea they are your child. 

Put interesting topics into your learning, give them goals weather that be daily, weekly, monthly or the entire school year. Give real life examples that is relevant to them like news, current topics, history and culture. Teachers and parents must have some type of relationship for understanding and better development for the child, parents should be a resource.  

Open House 2014

Rhode Island College hosted their annual open house for transfer students and up and coming freshman looking to start their college journey. I personally never went to an open house event to look into a major that would interest or compliment me. A great opportunity for kids in high school looking to brighten their future and move to the next step in life, College. There was a mixed group of student that came, kids who had a plan, curious kids with an idea, kids who were completely unsure whats next and kids with their parents looking for the best fit for their kids. A beautiful sight to see when kids came different tables with various questions.

Personally I had a great feeling in my heart when kids came to the Youth Development table and looked for knowledge what we were all about. Thanks to the day in class where we had the elevator speeches i had no problem speaking smoothly to guide all question and ideas. Also while I was speaking to individuals I had other groups elevator speech running through my head and images of Greg being a super hero. Not one person I spoke to was similar to the next, I had a different talk and passed different knowledge to students because of their approach to our YDEV table. I can say me and the other YDEV major collectively made a difference in the minds of the students coming up.

For up and coming open house’s I have some changes that may lead to more eyes turning to Youth Development. Some colorful streamers Balloons and also change the youth development sign to also have BA in it. Just to attract eye to our direction an also there were confusions that we were a club not really a major/ degree.

Here are some helpful links

RIC Wrestling team (great team to be apart of)-  http://www.goanchormen.com/index.html

Oasis (need help for classes)- http://www.ric.edu/oasis/

Youth Development (information) - http://www.ric.edu/educationalstudies/youthDevelopment.php

Personal ideas of Profession

 Up2Us-  This organization is something I got to experience because of working with Beat The streets, as a coaching training. A 3 day training course that took 8 hours each day with other coaches of different youth development areas across America. We started our day off with playing different games with all the other coaches like four square, then we did group learning activities, sharing knowledge and experiences through activity, learned about different strategies to work with youth and also group challenges of learning we did.  GREAT program to bring in youth development coaches to share and gain experience and knowledge for the better of the growth of youth.

 Beat The Streets- This amazing program that I competed with starting in my junior year of high school 2006, where I wrestled Beat The Streets member of NYC. At the time I had no clue what the actually set up for kids and great experience they received through this program. This started in NYC to help H.S students stay in school, raise grades, attendance and bring up the graduation numbers in many districts across the city. Beat the streets expanded to 16 other larger cities in the U.S lie providence, LA, Baltimore, Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit. In all areas where poverty stricken kids have many disadvantages to life and need help in developing their youth.

 YES Program- I encountered the Youth Enrichment Service while I was in 6th grade in Brentwood NY. this program is after school and is designed to be a support and aid for children that need supervision, an activity,socializing and or desire to like school. Many friends I knew either had parents who worked late, not many friends, needed help with school work or found it fun to do activities and sports after school with a cool group of people. After school was let out they met up did HW for a set time period, watched part of a movie then set up to desired activities like school subject based or hobbies and interest and ended with a game or sport.

Kids Camp- This interests me because I know how crucial a summer is for any age of youth but it is a time ALL youth cant wait for. So why not be apart of a child's life when the time frame is the most anticipated. Kids camp actually finds camps for children based on what you identify as thing of interest to you. For example I can look into overnight, non religious, my age, sports, academic adventure, arts, teen etc.. So i can work with kids of specific and that probably signed up for something that actually look forward too. 

Wilderness Works- This organization also would be something of interest id like to work with, this actual organization is in Atlanta and Seattle. The concept of Wilderness Works just excites me because this territory is something i have basic knowledge of like camping, some do and donts about surviving in the wilderness but it something id like to learn more of while teaching other children. i myself would love to be outdoors for a week or so and know i can survive and i think alot of youth would love the concept of knowing how to Survive in the woods and can relate it to surviving the "Streets"

Developing

I was very unsure what context mapping was so I went online and found this definition. Context mapping provides a hierarchical breakdown of the problem context. From seeing an example and reading the definition of context mapping is the breakdown of a content or topic for better understanding with key concepts and ideas. Another way to learn more visually and paint a picture in the learners mind.  Before Mitch asked Julian any questions he analyzed the situation and put himself in Julian s position , all trying to discover the true nature of the issue with out causing mass problems or excessive punishment. Julian was unable to participate in math events but also Mitch asked various spaces and  relationships he must negotiate each day. In addition he must add the people who Julian comes in contact with, what do they expect of Julian. Closing out that Mitch would like Julian to remember how he feels when coming in contact with these individuals. 

There is four different identities spoken about in Nakkula's article, through the relationship Marcia's commitment and Erickson crisis.

Foreclosed identity:  one in which an individual has committed to a life direction or way of being without exploring carefully and without experimenting with alternatives.

Diffusion Identity: a state in which there has been little exploration or active consideration of a particular identity and no psychological commitment to one.

Identity Moratorium:  development state in which one actively explores roles and beliefs, behaviors and relationships but refrain from making commitment.

Achieved Identity:  In this status the individual has successfully  integrates their ego- identity need from the past, within the present  and into the future and therefore can therefore display a certain level of self acceptance and strength across changing context.

Teacher and student

 

 This article attracted my attention right away. Getting deeper into the article i grew to dislike it for the reason it just got to wordy and moved away from painting a picture in my head what the article started talking about the teacher and student relationship. i had two very clear pictures in my head about two great television shows with teacher student relationships; The Simpsons and Boy Meets World.

Quote 1:  "Her relationship with Antwon Saladin has been rough as of late. Although Antwon was cordial, if not eager to please, back in September, Danielle has experienced him as rude, disrespectful, and downright hostile for most of the last several weeks. Antwon, likewise, feels like Ms. Petersen is also rude, disrespectful and hostile toward him."

I relate this to " The Simpsons" Bart Simpson the trouble maker and his teacher Ms. Krabapple. Bart is the biggest trouble maker in school and also the student teachers fear most. One teacher Ms. Krabapple is not phased by Bart one bit, WHY? Ms. Krapapple understands Bart, he loves attention, create an environment to not learn, off topic, low attention span, trouble maker and well know in school. Ms Krapapple uses her teaching tools to use his self against his self to create a better classroom for learning weather that means ignore certain acts, cries for help, detention, ignoring him, pointless work and witty and embarrassing jokes back. These examples create a line of respect and understanding which result in a better classroom.
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Quote 2:  "To compound matters, she is afraid of urban African American students like Antwon who do not communicate with one another or with in the way she is accustomed by virtue of her middle- class European upbringing."

Before any teacher teaches at a district or school she must get an understatement for the demographics of the area, student life outside school, school participation, academic achievement, attendance and work ethics to name a few. If you know the students you tech you are one step ahead of your teaching career. one must be versatile and know not all student are the same come from the same place and learn the same. which means you have to have different teaching styles or you can lose student in your class like Antwon. teaching is a difficult job which means extra work is needed if you want to be a great teacher.

Quote 3: "In Antwon's case he been testing Ms. Peterson for weeks, trying to determine weather she is an ally or an impediment to his success."

I will relate this back to "Boy Meets World" Cory and his best friend Shawn are not the best students in the school but the stay together and work to try and pass and they sometimes do not understand Mr. Feenys ways of assimilating to them. Cory and Shawn feel like Mr. Feeny is against them in all aspects but Mr. Feeny is on their side. He is very acknowledging about this home life and extra curricular activities so he tries to help the, see the world through his eyes which they don't understand so they take it as he is the enemy just trying to fail them both. Cory and Shawn just do not see him as an alley even though he is, the 3 of them must be at a total understanding for learning to happen.