Emotion Sculptures & Leadership

"Anger" from our 3rd period 

This past week in YESS we got into another awesome 3-D art project with our scholars. In keeping with our recent discussions on Emo Trolls, Hot Buttons, and anger, we talked more this past week about emotions and moods (and how they differ). We noted that while an emotion tends to be triggered by an event or action, moods are bit more difficult to pin down.They tend to be longer lasting than emotions, and often we wake to find we are in a "weird mood" or a "great mood" for no apparent reason. We also discussed how emotions can affect our moods, and how to better understand when this is happening so that we can better control our moods.

Cora and Jade's project on "Joy"

7th hour scholars hard at work

3rd period crafting their vision of "Anger," an emotion many scholars picked for their project

Once we began discussing core emotions, our scholars got to pick from a list of emotions for their project. Each mentor/mentee pair is allowed to pick whichever emotion they connect with most. The list included: Love, Joy, Surprise/Wonder, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Jealousy, Shame/Guilt, Disgust, Confusion, and Anxiety, Many of our scholars asked to do two different emotions as they wanted to compare and contrast ones such as joy and anger, or sadness and love. It has been so interesting to witness which emotions our scholars choose and how they decide to bring that emotion to life with cardboard, colored paper, glitter, feathers, pipe cleaners, and glue. These projects are the culmination of our unit entitled, "Problem-Solving."

Two mentees show off a project on "Love"

6th period working on their Emotion Sculpture

This past week we also got further into our talks on leadership with our mentors. We watched a video on Malala Yousafazai and her and her father's efforts to provide access to education for women in Pakistan. Many of our scholars were already familiar with her story, so we were able to have a very in-depth conversation about her life and her work in education. In relation to our talk on Malala we spoke about what education looks like in other countries around the world. So many mentors stated how grateful they felt to be able to go to school here in America.

Next week we will talk more about leadership in the context of Cesar Chavez and how he became a labor organizer in order to campaign for the rights of workers here in America by adopting an approach of non-violence. We will be starting a new unit on "Accountability," too- stay tuned!

Anger, Aggression, and YESS t-shirts!

This past week in our YESS classes at Shaw Heights we delved further into our discussion on anger and even began learning about the various types of aggression. Our scholars did a great job with some group work centered around questions on peer aggression and they really enjoyed employing the method of "Sage and Scribe" during this activity (the sage shares out the ideas of the group and the scribe notes the opinions of all group members. We have been experimenting with different types of Kagan strategies such as this one and we have had really great results!). We also had a lot of excitement over the arrival of our YESS t-shirts for the 2016-2017 school year. The pride of our YESS mentors and mentees was apparent as I handed each a shirt last week. Many wore theirs on Friday and it was awesome to see the halls flooded with our YESS shirts and our YESS leaders. 

Our 4th hour YESS scholars with their new shirts!

The front of our YESS shirts.

We began our lesson this week by discussing anger in more detail. After completing a journal entry and sharing out our experiences with anger (how anger has often gotten "the best of us") we moved onto a worksheet entitled, "Getting to know your anger." The worksheet asked our scholars to first complete an "Anger Inventory" section to better understand which situations may anger an individual. There were multiple scenarios presented to our scholars who had to judge, on a scale from 1 to 5, just how angry that situation would hypothetically make them (5 being incredibly angry, or "Bomby,"as we understand anger in the context of our lessons last week on Emo Trolls). The first scenario states, "You overheard people joking about your family or friends." Many of our scholars ranked this as a 4 or 5, vocalizing that it is when they feel that a loved one has been the subject of ridicule that it is most difficult to control our anger. The worksheet also asked the scholars to evaluate what occurs when they are angry- the physical, emotional, and behavioral reactions that we feel as a result of becoming angry. Our YESS mentors and mentees love to do worksheets like this that provide insight as to how they think and function on a daily basis. 

After completing our work on anger, we transitioned into discussing the various types of aggression that exist. Our scholars did a wonderful job working in groups of four to answer questions such as:

What issues are you all dealing with in middle school?

What makes growing up in today's world hard?

What situations stress you out?

The back of our YESS shirts.

Once our groups finished working, the sage from each group spoke and shared out that group's ideas to the rest of the class. We had an incredibly honest, in depth conversation about the issues our scholars are facing and what, exactly, stresses each of them out. Finally, we finished our week by discussing relational aggression, which is a type of aggression specifically focused on destroying someone else's relationships. When our scholars learned about this form of peer aggression, they really connected to it, as they are all too familiar with this sort of aggression.

All in all, we had a wonderful week and are so excited to have our t-shirts! A big thanks to YESS and all those who made our awesome shirts possible!

Emo Trolls!

This week was particularly exciting for our mentors who have been through the program before as we began our discussions around Emo Trolls. Many of our YESS scholars love this unit as they really relate to the Emo Trolls and find the information extremely valuable. The "Emo Trolls" are what we all resort to when we act without thinking and let our emotions take charge- we become small little monsters and we often do a lot of damage to our lives and our relationships when we act like one of the Emo Trolls.

A copy of our handout on Emo Trolls

Finally displaying our awesome projects on Core Emotions

Our scholars did a great job as we went over this information regarding Emo Trolls as the labels for these trolls are easily understood. The trolls are: Cool & Groovy, Smiley, Stuffy, Blamey, Sulky, Gossipy, Vengy, Bully, and Bomby. We all read the various descriptions and discussed, at length, what these trolls look like and how we have experienced these trolls in our own lives during a given moment. We took our time working through these Emo Trolls as they are very central to our discussions on hot buttons, triggers, and forming healthy relationships. If we resort to being one of the Emo Trolls, we risk damaging our relationships.

We had some great moments when certain individuals shared out experiences that detailed some of these Emo Trolls, and I am always so grateful for our outspoken, confident scholars. Next week we will put this information to work by creating skits to present to the class as a kind of group "charades" day.

Meanwhile our YESS scholars are getting back into the swing of things here at Shaw Heights after a long break, a snow day, and a long holiday weekend. Stay tuned for more on our unit on Emo Trolls!

Cool Buttons & Catching up

We had quite the short week for our first week back in 2017 as the district cancelled school last Thursday due to a frigid snow storm. Thankfully our YESS scholars came back ready to work and we were able to complete a lesson on "Cool Buttons" during our two days together last week. I am so grateful for the focus and work ethic our scholars have demonstrated after such a long break.

Continuing our discussions around triggers or, "Hot Buttons," from before break, we reviewed as a class what some of our personal hot buttons are and how we handled these over the break. Several mentors shared out frustrations over conflicts with siblings yet were able to touch on the fact that they were less reactive in those moments thanks to the simple knowledge of knowing what, exactly, makes them upset and hurt. I continually tell our scholars that knowledge is power, and I had several echo me last week during this discussion as they told me they felt more empowered than others in knowing that 85% of their peers do not feel respected nor valued at any given moment in time (this factoid came from one of our previous lessons during which we discussed core emotions and key coping skills). Our YESS scholars enter conversations carefully, and with empathy, knowing that the people in their lives each have hot buttons of their own and that we must be cognizant of this in order to work together successfully.

Playing a game of Uno with 4th Period

It was so wonderful to catch up with our scholars after weeks apart. We spent the last 15 minutes on Friday have some "fun time" together, chatting and playing board games (and some pretty awesome Uno card games!). I am really looking forward to our Mentor Monday talks next week and seeing our scholars working hard during Tutoring Tuesday so that each is able to excel in all of his or her classes this semester as much as possible!

Hot Buttons & Hot Cider!

It is so very hard to believe that is will be our final posting for the YESS blog at Shaw Heights for the 2016 calendar year! Time has really flown by this semester as I got to know each and every one of our YESS scholars. As I write this, I am already missing my time in the YESS classroom, for being with our scholars is truly a rewarding experience.

This past week we did a lesson on "Hot Buttons"-- on what, exactly, makes us angry. Many of our scholars were looking forward to this lesson as they all stated how much the worksheet revealed about their tendencies to get upset, and how empowered they all felt after identifying their major triggers. Our mentors are really stepping up at this point in the semester, taking a lot of ownership over their mentees' work and celebrating their mentees' successes. While this lesson certainly brought up a lot of emotion for all of our scholars, our mentors did a wonderful job guiding their mentees through the assignment.

We wrapped up our year by having a wonderful donut and hot cider party which was hosted by Tony Streno. Our scholars were overjoyed at the sight of the delicious donuts, and many had never heard of hot cider, let alone had any. We were so very thankful for Mr. Streno's generosity. To wrap up our discussion on EQ vs. IQ and the need to establish healthy skills such as self awareness, social awareness, self management, and relationship management, we watched the movie "Elf" while enjoying our treats. In the film the main character is an "elf" named Buddy, who is really a human who was adopted by elves as a baby, and is on a journey to find his real father. Therein lies the conflict of the film, however, as Buddy is very emotional but has no boundaries, and his real father is driven by his desire to make money without care or cause for the feelings of others. Our scholars loved watching the film and we paused throughout to point out the need for Buddy to be more socially aware, or for his father to work on relationship management skills.

The front of the YESS holiday card.

The back of the YESS holiday card.

All in all it was a wonderful end to a fantastic year with our YESS scholars at Shaw Heights, topped off by the display of artwork on behalf of our Shaw Heights scholars on the YESS company holiday card. Many of our scholars turned in impressive drawings of what YESS means to them in relation to the holiday season, and four were chosen to be on the card this year. We are so proud of our amazing artistic scholars.

Here's to wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season--we cannot wait to be back together in January for the new year!

EQ vs IQ: What is Emotional Intellegence?

This past week in our YESS program at Shaw Heights we wrapped up our projects on the four key skills--Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, and Relationship Management--by having each group present their poster to the class. Our mentors and mentees did a wonderful job working together on their presentations, and I was quite impressed with how outspoken and confident our mentees were during their presentations.



Yuliana and Ximena hold their group's poster on Social Awareness

All of the groups from each class were able to answer questions about their subject in addition to being able to provide a personal account of a time when he or she either used or ignored that particular skill, citing their experiences with evidence. It was so impressive to see our scholars apply information such as relationship management and social awareness to their own lives, especially in relation to how they will act in the future now that they are equipped with this knowledge. (For instance: one of our YESS scholars referred back to a fact we learned last week when I asked how social awareness may help us succeed; he was able to recall that 85% of us do not feel valued/respected by our peers, and that if we are aware of this, we may be able to approach a situation at work or school more sensitively, which may increase our chances of succeeding).

Once we completed our presentations, we moved on to a discussion centered around EQ (emotional quotient). Many of our scholars were familiar with the term IQ, though only a handful had ever heard of EQ (and many of these scholars were in YESS last year). We went over a packet of information about EQ and IQ, including a map that details which countries around the world have the highest and lowest EQs.




Isai shows off his results from the EQ Self Assessment

Our scholars were then asked to take a self-assessment to determine their current level of emotional intelligence. The assessment consists of four categories--self-awareness, self-control, empathy, and responding with integrity. We had a couple of scholars who scored perfect scores in some of these categories, and most of our scholars scored well in all of these areas. It seems, however, that self-control is the category our scholars need to work on the most! We will continue to work on skills to increase our self-control.

We are all looking forward to break next week!

5 Core Emotions & EQ

This past week in YESS we began our discussion on emotional intelligence (EQ) by talking about "nature vs. nurture" and the curious story of Phineas Gage, a man who lost a portion of his brain after a traumatic accident. Our scholars debated whether we are in fact a product of our environment or if we are born and destined to act and/or behave a certain way. Many were able to touch on the fact that it is a combination of the two factors that influence our behavior, though we agreed that the environment plays a crucial role in one's development.

We read the story of Phineas Gage to better understand the science behind our emotions, for Phineas Gage was a man of good character who was admired by all who knew him--that is, until he was injured on the job by an explosion which sent a 42 inch metal rod through the lower half of his skull. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly to our scholars who now understand the brain!) Phineas was able to talk, breathe, and walk right after the accident. He not only survived but made a "full physical recovery." However, when it came to his mental and emotional well being, he was forever changed. As my scholars pointed out, only part of his brain was damaged, which is why he was able to do math, have a conversation, and continue working at his job on the railroad. What he could not do was relate to others in any capacity, for the portion of his brain that was damaged was the one responsible for regulating emotions.

Once we unpacked the story of Phineas Gage, our scholars began a research project on the four key skills necessary for dealing with our five core emotions (anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, and anxiety). The four key skills are: Self-Management, Relationship Management, Self-Awareness, and Social Awareness. Scholars worked in teams of 4-6 to figure out the definition of their key skill, why it is important for our EQ, and what we can do to strengthen that particular skill. The groups were then required to design a poster with all the relevant information for their skill which they will be presenting to our class this week.

Everyone did a wonderful job both working together and creating an informative poster, and I am proud that our scholars are taking this work so seriously. We have many mentors who are really looking forward to our lesson this week on "Hot Bottons." Stay tuned!