EOY Preparations & YESS Breakfast

Ava interviews Ingrid during 3rd hour.

We are all so happy to have wrapped up our final week of testing last week at Shaw Heights. Our scholars have been working so hard these past three weeks, and now that testing is over they are itching for summer break to arrive. We spent the last week preparing for the end of the year by doing things such as starting the voting process for Mentor & Mentee of the year, hosting mentor interviews, and working on our slide show for the end of year celebration scheduled for Wednesday, May 17th at Westy High School. Preparing for the end of the year has many of our mentors feeling nostalgic (I must admit I find it hard that my 8th grade mentors will soon be leaving!). Yet, at the same time, there is a feeling of excitement for those who have decided to be mentors in the fall. We all had such a wonderful morning at the YESS breakfast on Thursday, and I am so honored to be working for an organization which has so clearly bettered the wider Denver community.

Conner interviews Jessiah during 4th hour.

On Monday the mentors and I had hosted interviews for potential candidates for the fall. The mentors prepared by choosing specific questions to ask and by discussing before hand the kind of answers we are looking for in a future mentor. We held the interviews all day long, and it was great to see our scholars using the knowledge we have learned recently regarding interviews and preparedness. I was impressed by several mentees for the level of sincerity and seriousness that they demonstrated during the process. It was certainly nerve-wracking for many and yet they remained professional and mature. I am pleased to say that 90% of our mentees wish to come back as mentors next year. I think this speaks volumes for the program and the desire of these young people to continue the cycle of support and care. We are in for some amazing new mentors come fall!

Ariana, Ava and I after I arrived back at school from the breakfast.

This past week we also began the voting process to select the mentor and mentee of the year. Each class was asked to think about one mentor and one mentee (they did not have to be a pair) whom they think has shown the most GROWTH in the following areas: respect, participation, organization, and attendance. I asked them to think about who had taken the knowledge from our lessons and was putting it work every day, all the time, every where. Since we have five YESS classes, we ended up with five finalists in each category. This week each class will have a chance to pick one of the five mentors, and one of the five mentees. We will present the mentor and mentee with an award at our end of year celebration. The finalists for the mentors are: Matt Garcia, Gio Ornelas, Brandon Bieske, Dejah-Monae Rosales, and Kiana Gerston, The finalists for mentees are: Hailey Tinney, Malachi Fernandez, Amanda Martinez Olivas, Kiki Lee, and Jordy Lopez Ontiveros.

The YESS breakfast was so moving and so well thought out--I couldn't have felt more proud as I listened to the young scholars from our high school programs speak about how and why YESS has changed their lives. It was so fulfilling to see one of our own alumni speak at the podium about his career, education, and his ability to achieve his dreams thanks to his participation in YESS. They showed the video that Westminster was so kind to film for YESS, and I couldn't hold back the tears as they focused on our program here at Shaw. It was such a special moment to see my scholars up on the big screen, What a fantastic way to celebrate all of the successes of our students and the programs. Here is the link to the video: https://vimeo.com/213900811/c82ccf61c0

Next week will host an open house for YESS and our scholars will get a chance to interact with some of the board members. We are all happy to be back to work with a normal schedule next week and lots of fun things to look forward to as we near the end of the school year.

Mentor Prepping & De-stressing!

Some great work from our 5th hour mentors.

It was another long week of testing at Shaw Heights this past week. I am so proud of the effort our scholars are making in trying to be rested, well fed, and ready each day for PARCC testing. We were glad to have a full day of classes on Monday in order to fully utilize our Mentor Monday time to prep for next year's mentors. Our current mentors have been charged with the responsibility of helping me conduct interviews for next year's candidates. The mentors had to come up with three different questions to ask the potential mentors; they will be taking turns interviewing today during our class time. I am excited to see how this process goes!

A great shot from last week showing just how hard a three-legged race can be!

We continued our week of de-stressing team builders and games while also squeezing in some time in the computer lab in order to further our research on our "college knowledge." Mentors helped mentees do some research on potential degrees, job growth, salary expectation, and potential problems that may keep one from enrolling in college. The mentors did a an excellent job supporting their mentees, especially after a long morning of testing!

Stacey will be receive her Adam's County Youth Initiative Award this Thursday- Go Stacey!!!

This week will be the final week of testing for our scholars and we will be glad to get back to work next week with our regular schedule. Quite a few of our mentees will be heading out on the annual Outdoor Ed trip this Wednesday- I am thrilled that our scholars get to participate in this amazing opportunity. One of our mentors, Stacey, will also receive her award from the Adam's County Youth Initiative. We are so proud of you, Stacey!

PARCC Testing & College Knowledge

Andres does a "trust fall" during 3rd hour.

This past week marked the start of PARCC state testing for our scholars at Shaw Heights. We had testing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (for select groups). Testing went from the first bell until about 11:30, which has made for quite the long week for our YESS mentors and mentees. We spent the short week discussing our new unit, "The Future," in the context of college. On Friday, our mentors lead class and conducted several team builders for the mentees.

5th hour waiting to start the "trust fall" activity.

So many of our scholars began getting stressed last week in lieu of the testing. Several even told me that they fell asleep during the test as they were so worried about it that they cannot even sleep well. We are trying to combat the high level of anxiety by doing team builders and by openly discussing how we are feeling and what habits we are incorporating into our routines.

Sabestian and Andres during the three-legged race.

Friday we had a day of fun with our mentors leading the mentees through exercises like the "trust fall" and "the human knot" (a game where everyone in a circle grabs someone else's hand and then the group must untangle the knot without letting go). We also hosted several three-legged races outside, and did a fun partner sketching activity. All in all, the mentees were thrilled for a day of excitement lead by their mentors.

Anthony and Quan play Twister during 6th hour after completing a worksheet last week.

Next week we continue testing and will delve further into our talks about colleges by getting into the computer lab to do a little research.

A New Unit & the YESS Video Shoot!

Ava was the first to be interviewed- she did wonderfully!

This past week we had the special honor of having several of our students, parents, and classes filmed for a new YESS video. The video, which will be shown at our annual "Road to Success" breakfast on April 26th, details the lives of our young YESS scholars and the ways in which the program has impacted their lives (and the lives of their families, too!). On Tuesday and Wednesday we had a camera crew set up in our classroom to capture what it is we do here every day. Our mentors and mentees were so excited and proud to share their experiences with the crew, and I was so impressed by their honesty and accountability as they told their stories on camera. A special thank you to all who were involved in this process--we cannot wait to see the final result!

Brenna was the last to be interviewed, and also did a fantastic job.

Last week we began a new unit entitled, "The Future." Many of our mentors are looking forward to the career planning component of this unit, and some of our mentees are already realizing changes they can make now to be more successful in the future. We started out by discussing the link between accountability and having a successful future--we agreed that it certainly would be hard to be successful if one cannot be accountable. In this vein of thought we started to discuss the nature of a habit, and how habits effect our success. We broke it down to better understand that habituation is a simple form of learning, and once a habit is learned it becomes "routine." Here is where it got interesting, however, as we learned that there are 5 essential habits one should possess in trying to become more successful. They are: getting exercise; making wise food choices; getting 8 hours of sleep each evening; surrounding one's self with positive people; and having healthy communication skills. While some of our scholars do some of these things, no one person could say that they do all 5. This knowledge of habits really seemed to stick with our scholars, and many have said to me in the days since how they plan to try and get more sleep, or eat breakfast each day, or how they plan to find friends who like to eat lunch (many of our scholars barely eat during lunch, and most do not make wise food choices).

 Sue Lee speaks about why she choose to move so that her daughter, Kiki, could be in YESS.

Last week we also did a simple assessment on learning styles so that our scholars can better understand which study habits are most in line with their personal method of processing. Whether auditory, visual, or kinesthetic, our scholars recognized the need to adopt new ways of learning so that they can get the most out of their brains (and their time!) when studying. Since our assessment, I have had visual learners ask to borrow highlighters, kinesthetic learners ask to take stretch breaks, and have had some of my more reserved auditory learners volunteer more in class discussions. I am happy to see that many have seized this information and are already putting it to work!

PARCC begins this week for us at Shaw Heights, which marks the beginning of a stressful few weeks for our scholars. We will be working on stress relievers and other tools to use during the next couple of weeks. We have also sent out our mentor applications for the 2017-2018 school year, and I am proud to say that almost every single person who can come back into the program would like to. It will be a very selective process to be accepted as a mentor this year as we have so much interest--stay tuned! 

Parent Conferences & Self-Portrait Presentations

Julianna Romero expressed the inner turmoil she feels while Ava Martinez wanted to show all of the issues she has overcome in the during the past two years in YESS.

What an exciting week we had in our YESS program at Shaw Heights! We spent the last week before Spring Break presenting our self-portrait projects, going over grades and preparing for conferences, and writing accountability letters. Our scholars did a wonderful job on their projects and showed such confidence during our presentations. I was also quite proud of the accountability letters our scholars wrote and the way in which mentors helped support this process.

Tyler Parks' self-portrait from 6th hour.

I was so excited to do our gallery walk and presentations for the self-portraits this week as our scholars have been working so hard on these projects. Unlike many of our projects, mentors and mentees did not work together but rather had to complete their own individual projects. While many of our mentees felt "stuck" at first, it wasn't long before they were hunched over and hard at work after they took some time to flip through projects from last year and gather their thoughts. Many of our scholars were afraid to be honest in their drawings and depictions but after a few supportive conversations they had the courage necessary to be 100% honest. We ended up with a lot of projects that show how the individual thinks others perceive them and how they perceive themselves--the comparisons were rich with detail and offer a lot of insight, and I am so proud of the bravery shown in these images.

A compare and contrast self-protrait project from 3rd hour.

Dayanara reads her "I am Poem" to her mother during conferences. 

After we went over the projects we moved on to preparing for parent conferences by completing scripts and going over them together. Each scholar was required to evaluate their grades from our fall conferences and to state how they thought they were doing now; I then met individually with each and every one of our YESS scholars to discuss their progress. During this time I had everyone working on writing an "accountability letter" to either a teacher or staff member at Shaw Heights. They had to pick someone with whom they had had an issue at some point during the year (even if that issue were a simple as not sharing out ideas or participating in a certain classroom). They then had to apologize for the issue and/or behavior and state how they plan to change in the future to ensure the same issue does not reoccur. The letters were well written and genuine, and I am excited to hand them out to teachers and staff when we return from break.

I was so happy to have so many parents come out for conferences this past week. We got a chance to show parents some of the amazing art projects we have done, and I loved seeing the pride on our YESS scholars' faces as they read their poems or presented their projects to their family members. Thank you to all who made time to drop by my classroom to speak with me! 

Self Portraits & Mentors at the 5th Grade Fair!

Brenna, myself and Advino at the 5th Grade Fair!

This past week in our YESS classes at Shaw Heights we did a fantastic art project and we hosted a table at the 5th Grade Fair for two days. We were so excited to begin our self-portrait projects, and it was made even more special by the showing our 5th grade visitors our classroom and all the great work our scholars have done all year long. We also began preparing for Parent Conferences, which will take place next week.

Advino and Brenna speak to students about their experiences in YESS.

The 5th Grade Fair was an awesome opportunity for our YESS mentors to directly speak to incoming 5th graders about their experiences and why YESS helped them during middle school. Several mentors assisted me in setting up a display table in the gym, where we showcased past projects such as our emotion sculptures. The 5th graders were guided around the gym by our WEB leaders, many of whom are also YESS mentors. Each group got a chance to hear about the program and about our YESS mentors and how many went from being shy, depressed, introverted, angry, defiant, disruptive, argumentative, negative students to empowered, confident, kind, respectful, supportive, hard working scholars. I was so impressed by the efforts of Ava Martinez, Adivno Sawa-Baldizan, Stacey Tejeda-Sandoval, Brenna Torres, and Ariana Miller to connect with these 5th graders and to speak honestly about the obstacles they have overcome with the support of YESS. It is amazing to see how far they have come, but it is even more rewarding to hear them speak to the necessity of helping others and how great they feel being able to help their mentees out this year. I am so thankful to the staff at Shaw Heights for covering my classroom in order to allow me to be present at this year's 5th Grade Fair! It was a wonderful two days and I am so excited for all the new 5th graders to come to Shaw in the fall.

Mentors and their mentees hard at work in 5th hour.

Our YESS scholars were thrilled to finally get to make their self-portrait projects this past week. So many mentors had spoken about the project, and we have many artists in YESS who are always happy to hear about a new art opportunity. Before we began the project we discussed the concept of self-portraits and touched on the fact that, just like poetry, a self-portrait does not necessarily have to "be" anything- though, just like poetry, it must evoke emotion and have a connection to the artist. We did some research on famous artists and their self-portraits, and we took a look at some modern concepts. Our scholars quickly got to work, and it wasn't long before I was moved to tears by several of the projects. They are all so unique and heartfelt, and I really admire the honesty and accountability I am seeing in the art and design of these projects.

Caillou and Ryan work on their self-portraits in 5th hour.

Ivan did an amazing job on his project!

We will be having a gallery walk and presentation this week, so stay tuned for pictures of the actual projects. Our scholars are excited for spring break, and we are all enjoying the beautiful weather. We hope to make it outside this Friday for a fun day before our week long break! 

Accountability & Success

What a crazy two weeks it has been for us at Shaw Heights! I must apologize for the missing blog post as I was unable to write one last week. I have been out for two weeks as I have been recoveing from a collapsed lung, and it has been quite a long and painful process. I am so thankful to have had one of our long term substitute teachers, Mr. Morris, covering for me during my absence. Our YESS scholars are quite found of Mr. Morris, and having one person instead of a multitude of subs is something for which I am incredibly grateful.

Our worksheet on Accountability and Success

In the week prior to my absence the scholars and I continued our work on accountability by discussing success and ways that one can take accountability at any given moment. We spent some time working on accountability statements--that is, how to change the language so that we are being accountable for our actions and are not dismissive, defiant, or in denial about what transpired. We worked on statements such as, "It broke," and one by one scholars came to the board to tweak the statement until it became 100% accountable. We framed the statement in the context of an individual breaking someone's phone and simply handing it back without explanation nor apology. Our scholars changed "it broke" to, "I am so sorry, I broke your phone. Can I help pay to fix it?" We did this exercise with several common "excuse" statements such as: they were doing it first; she told me to; he started it; I didn't mean to; it wasn't my fault; and I didn't know. It was wonderful to see our YESS scholars registering the difference between an accountable statement and one that is more of an excuse.

7th Hour playing Connect Four

7th Hour Chess games

We took this knowledge and expanded upon it by doing a worksheet that asked for each scholar to complete a story in which the main character was faced with an opportunity to either be accountable or not. The worksheet also asked one to consider a time in which one was accusatory and defiant instead of accountable and to rework the situation given the new found knowledge of how, exactly, to be fully accountable. We had a great time working on these worksheets together and the mentors did an excellent job of helping the mentees understand the importance of 100% accountability.

After completing this lengthy packet we had a game day together to unwind. We had several great games of Uno, a really intense table of Connect Four players, and a few close chess games. It was a great week and I am so looking forward to getting back into the swing of things this week as we wrap up our Accountability unit with an amazing art project on self-portraits.