The Brain

We had a very long week in YESS as we got started on our lessons on the brain. Our scholars were worried as they were met with many new, challenging words such as "amygdala" and "cerebellum." Since we need to build on this knowledge, we took it slowly to ensure all scholars were learning and understanding

Kiana and her mentee, Emily did an excellent job on the word sort!

 some of the basic brain structure. In order to help this process we have been playing a brain "word sort" game every day, twice a day, with some of our new vocabulary. At first, it took each table about five minutes and two or three tries before they had it right. By Friday, however, each table was able to complete the word sort correctly in less than a minute! I am very proud of the efforts our scholars are making as we work through this new material--this is new even for those who have been with YESS for the last three years, and everyone is doing an excellent job.


To help our understanding of the brain, we watched several videos and worked on filling out a diagram. We also heard the curious story of Phineas Gage, a man who, in 1848, suffered an accident and had a railroad spike go through his head. He lived to tell the tale, though his personality was forever altered. This is a great story as it really shows just how sensitive and specialized our brains are. It really helps our scholars to understand how localized functions are in the brain, and why!

Elisio and Nick get some help from my student assistant, Isai.

On Friday we had a small party in 5th and 7th hour as they were the "winners" of a team builder from the week prior that required the whole class to pass through a hula-hoop while sharing something private. These two classes were the largest of the day and yet managed to do this exercise in less than 1:30, showing great teamwork and community. Way to go!

Next week we will continue learning even more about the brain.

A great team build during 4th hour Fun Friday free time!

Fear & Cyberbullying

Playing the "fear box" game with 5th hour.

Wow! It is hard to believe we are almost into February. It has been a great year so far in YESS as we have delved into discussions centered around fear. Fear is a strong, primal emotion, and for a few days we simply talked about what we fear and why. We played a game where each scholar had to write one fear they had on a piece of paper. I collected all of the pieces in the "fear box" and we then took turns reading them aloud one by one. If you agreed with the fear, you had to move to the "yes" side of the classroom. If you did not find the fear scary, you moved to the "no" side. This exercise is great because our scholars are able to see that they are not alone in their fears--in fact, many if not most of their peers share their fears: the fear of losing a loved one, the fear of being alone, the fear of not succeeding and graduating, or the fear of being rejected. Once we realize we are not alone in our fears, they start to become less powerful.

In order to understand exactly how one can reject fear, we watched a video that explained how we can name our fears and, in time, reject them. We learned that, just like with any personal issue, the first step is awareness. The next step is positive thinking--much like our ritual, Today I Choose. The final step is needing to take action in opposition of the fear. This is the hardest step for it requires on to embrace the fear and to likely ask for help and support in doing so (often our fears keep us from asking for help when we need it most). It was a challenge for our scholars to name, reject, and take action against one specific fear.

An example of work from the video on Fear.

One great example of this was a mentor who struggled with trust. I encouraged her reach out to the person she trusts most to share three new private things about herself. Funny enough, the person she trusts most is also a mentor who struggles with trust. I had these young ladies share three things with one another in order to deepen and strengthen their relationship. "Miss!" She told me later in the week, "We did it! It was so weird. We felt really nervous. And we cried. But it was the best conversation we have ever had and we feel closer than ever now."

4th hour enjoys some free time on Friday.

We also spent some time discussing cyber-bullying and how fear plays into whether or not we feel empowered to do something about bullying. Stay tuned for more on bullying next week!