January 18th- 22nd

On January 18th, students from Shaw Heights Middle school represented YESS in Denver's Martin Luther King Marade. The Marade began at City Park and continued to the state capital. YESS students marched to honor Dr. King and raise community awareness of an issue they and their peers deal with daily - the school-to-prison pipeline. Many fellow marchers and community members spoke with the students about the pipeline and how to address it. It was exciting to hear students speak about the issue and carry signs they created with lines such as, "Let's prepare students for college, not prison", "Education is Power!", and "La Educacion es Poder!".

Shaw student Melissa shared, "I felt really happy marching and seeing people give me a thumbs up and taking pictures of my sign. It made me feel like I was teaching people and doing the right thing."

On Tuesday and Wednesday, students discussed ways they can manage anger, recognize when they are becoming angry, and how they can avoid situation that make them angry. 

On Thursday we had a team building day since classes were shortened to 30 minutes due to access testing. The students played a game called, "Want to buy my monkey?"  At first, students were embarrassed and didn't want to play. In the game, one student plays the part of the owner, and the other student is the monkey. The owner has to sell the monkey to another classmate.  In order to impress the potential buyer, the monkey has to make the potential owner laugh by either singing, dancing or other. It was great seeing how comfortable students were with one another. They were able to let go and be silly. By the end of the day students were asking if they could come back to the YESS classroom and play again! Overall, this was another successful week at Shaw.  

January 11th- January 15th

This week students in the YESS Institute at Shaw Heights Middle School had another productive week. This week students focused on their listening and communication skills by doing an activity called, "back-to-back."  Students were given a picture and had to communicate to their mentor/mentee how to draw the picture they had, without saying what the picture is.  Students realized that they may need to improve on their listening skills, their communication skills, or both.

Students also talked about boundaries and did the Apple Pie Activity. In the activity students reflected on their relationships and decided if they are in a 50-50 relationship with friends, family, or their mentor/mentee, or if they are a "crumb eater" meaning that they don'put in enough effort. Some students learned that they are "hungry turkeys' meaning that they have most of the control in the relationship and they will end up feeling burnt out and resenting the other person. 

AE is now a mentor training class. In this class there are 6th graders who are on track to be mentors for the 2016-2017 school year. These students had three hours with me on Thursday because of ACCESS testing, In this class we talked about racial profiling, empathy, and listened to mentors about their experiences with mentoring.   

On Monday January 18th, a few YESS students will be marching in the MLK Marade. Pictures will be posted on the next blog. 

January 5th- January 8th

The YESS Institute at Shaw Heights Middle school started off the school year with an awesome "I Am" project, and a field trip to CU Denver. This week was a short four day week, but an emotional one for some students. This week students shared a lot about themselves though their "I Am" poems. Some students talked about their future, college dreams, and other talked about alcoholism in their families, and some talked about death of parents. These poems were amazing pieces of work. I was so impressed with how well they were written.

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On Friday, the YESS mentees and mentors visited CU Denver. The students were able to learn about the different majors CU offers, as well as talk to students that are attending CU Denver currently. Students also learned about the scholarship opportunities they may have, as well as what opportunities first generation students have at CU Denver. Overall, the students had a great week of learning at Shaw.