Somehow it is already October and we're continuing to keep busy here at JFK. Before going any further though, I want to shout out Hannah (mentor 12th grade) and Audry (mentee 9th grade). Both of these students approach others with patience and an open mind. Having them in class always brings good vibes to the room.
Throughout the first part of this semester we have continued to talk about identity. Students have thought about who they are through discussions of intersectionality, food, and self portraits. For their self portraits students were encouraged to think of themselves through 3 different lenses; how they see themselves, how their friends see them, and how the world sees them. They could decide to use one or a combination of these lenses. Please see their work below.
In addition to discussing our individual identites we spent the month of September exploring Hispanic Heritage Month and Banned Books Week. Through both of these topics we had the opportunity to dive into the ways identities are points of amazing celebration, but also how they can be used to divide us. We have used these discussions to jump into ideas of solidarity. Through Hispanic Heritage Month mentor-mentee groups focused on figures both past and present who have fought to build up their communities and have changed the world for the better. You can see some of their work below.
Finally, we celebrated Banned Books Week. Our YESS students engaged in a deep discussion about how and why books are banned and took a look at the most frequently banned books of the last two years. They were quick to notice that books that openly discussed racism or featured members of the LGBTQIA community were the most frequently banned. After the discussion mentor-mentee groups got together to create ads for the books they were most interested. You can see some of those here:
Coming up next month we will continue to talk about identity and move into our healthy relationships unit. We will also be celebrating National LGBTQ+ History Month, so be sure to check back to see what amazing work these students come up with.