Web of Emotions

Last week we continued our discussion on emotions by completing an art project called, "Web of Emotions." Each scholar was allowed to decide whether they wanted to work with their mentor/mentee or whether they preferred to work on their own, as exploring one's connection to a certain emotion can be deeply personal. Before we began the projects, we reviewed the six core emotions and did a circle map to brainstorm any and all possible connections (adjectives, synonyms, actions/behaviors, triggers, places, things, and even colors) one might have to the emotion anger, for example.

Webs for "fear" and "sadness."

Webs for "anger" and "joy." 

Many chose to work on their own for this project so that they could explore their own personal connection to a specific emotion. Last week, I had asked each scholar to identify one of the six core emotions that they find to be the most challenging to deal with. I was so proud to see that many decided to do their project on their most challenging (or most difficult to control) emotion. 

Robert and his mentee Javoni do "Today I Choose..." together.

Celest and her mentee, Chloe, enjoy some fresh air on Friday afternoon.

We took two days to build our webs, and then had a wonderful gallery walk and share out. It is was so interesting to see the different ways each experiences anger, or sadness, or even fear. I could see a lot of self-awareness as we completed this exercise, and I really think our scholars benefited from a deeper understanding of they relate to certain emotions. 

Donovan and Austin play Monopoly during some Fun Friday free time.

Next week we will be doing some reflection work with the mentors as we prepare for break. We also have a pretty fun week planned with a school dance and an awards ceremony. Stay tuned!

Emotions

Brainstorming emotions with 5th hour.

This past week in YESS we began talking about emotions in more detail. We began by trying to brainstorm out as many emotions as we possibly could--shout out to Cora, Chadaey, and Jayleen, all of whom managed to come up with 41, 39, and 32 emotions in less than three minutes! These mentors have a strong EQ and are great about sharing out their knowledge--thanks, ladies!!

An example of the annotated reading we did last week.

As a class, we noted how many different words we can use to describe just one single emotion. For example, if we are sad, we may say we are feeling down, depressed, melancholy, blue, unhappy, miserable, gloomy, or heartbroken. Since there are SO many ways to describe how we are feeling, it is easy to see how miscommunication might occur. Both mentors and mentees did a great job of connecting this point to our lessons last week on communication.

Fabulous notes from a second year mentor!

We took some time to identify the six core emotions--sadness, anger, joy, disgust, surprise, and fear--and then we used some Kagan structures for a reading and writing exercise to learn more about the purpose of emotions. Though it took us two days to work through the reading, I am very proud to say our mentors did a great job of facilitating this activity. Our scholars were required to number the paragraphs, circle key words, and underline main ideas. They worked in groups of four and each member took a turn reading and relaying information to their group members so that all could record notes. We learned a several important facts, such as emotions are adaptions that help us survive and that there are three main components in how we process emotions: subjective, physiological, and expressive. We also noted that emotions give us important information about the world around us, and that others can take cues from our body language to take action to help us, if necessary.

7th hour ladies enjoying some free time on Friday afternoon.

Next week we will work on a group art project that will detail and explain the six core emotions and any/all associations that we have with that particular emotion.

Miscommunication

3rd hour during the drawing challenge.

This past week in YESS we continued our discussion on "stinking thinking" by discussing the issue of miscommunication and how it, in turn, can trigger some stinking thinking if we are not very careful with our language. The mentors and I have been talking about language for a few weeks now as  I have been coaching them on the approaches they take when (if) they have a conflict with their mentee. We noted how a simple sentence or two can set someone "on edge" without us having even realized the impact of our words. In order to be more aware, we did a couple of fun exercises to demonstrate just how easily miscommunication can occur and what happens as a result.

Austin tries to explain his drawing to his mentor, Chase.

We played the telephone game to warm up (not one class was successful in passing the sentence around the circle unchanged!) and then we watched a short video that noted four ways we can improve our communication. First, we must practice active listening; second, we must be open in the conversation and we must go slowly when talking; third, we must pay attention to the signals we send with our body language; and finally, we must be aware of the perceptions and perspectives we bring to each conversation based on our history, culture and personal experiences as these things influence the way we understand and see things.

Andrew working hard to follow Darrien's directions!

Isai and TJ during our drawing challenge in 5th hour. 

Everyone seemed to really connect with this issue of miscommunication. We noted how even a cell phone can cause problems by having auto-correct change a word while texting. Once we had increased our awareness about this issue, we then started working as mentor/mentee pairs to try and improve the ways we communicate. We had the mentees and mentors pair up, sitting back to back, for a drawing challenge. The mentors has two minutes to draw whatever they wished, but the catch was that they had to then explain how to draw the same image to their mentee--while remaining back to back. This was a great challenge and really helped our scholars get engaged with this issue of communication.

Chadaey tries to stop laughing as she attempts to draw "taste" for her group during Pictionary.

We took it a step further by playing team charades on Friday. It was VERY hard for our scholars to not talk during this game, but as time went on they all got better and better about using non-verbal cues to coach their team members along.

We are excited to talk more about relationships and communication next week!