El Día de Los Muertos: Cowboy Edition
- yessinstitutehr
- Nov 16, 2020
- 6 min read
Welcome to November.
The purpose of this blog is to inform our West community about what our students are doing in our online-remote learning classroom. In it, you will read about the following 3 items:
Lessons Covered
Student Spotlight -- Student Shoutouts & the Mentor Leadership Team
What’s Next -- December
The month of October was full of many highs, some lows, but ultimately, the month itself was a great month for our students. Here are the lessons we covered:
Lessons Covered
We started a new lesson behind identifying how our students perceive themselves. This lesson will be revisited in the future, as the identities our students carry is far more complex than anyone can imagine. It would be a disservice to only cover these learning objectives, but for now, we believe we have laid a solid foundation into a glimpse of what our students wake up to every day.
The lesson itself started off by us laying out the concept of what an identity is. Our students were able to formulate their own ideas of what identities are, what they show to the world as well as what they hide.
Simply put, our class was able to identity three identities. All three Below are used in different ways as our students maneuvers his life. Our students have all three identities, depending on who they are interacting with. The way that I tied this identity concept back to our students was simply by asking them how they act when they are in public, with adults, and when they are by themselves.
1. The Student Identity
Our kids have educational goals that they want to achieve, and their interactions with teachers reflect these goals. Our students, I would argue, put on a different personality when they are with teachers. Students tend to follow rules, ask questions, and help out others. Students tend to not be disrespectful and they tend to be pleased with their teachers. Now, does this mean that all students are this way? No, it does not. Generally speaking though, it seems that our students tend to be one way in front of adults. Very rarely do you really see students be who they really are in front of adults and teachers. This is where the challenge lies in empowering our students to develop healthy and positive relationships with adults.
2. The Teenager Identity
What can I say, teenagers will be...teenagers. Their identity as they are growing up changes as the day goes on. Some factors that can influence how they act is their sphere of influence, as in the environment that they surround themselves in. Nevertheless, this identity includes the habits, energy, attitude, and overall way that they engage with other teenagers as well. This identity is usually reserved for their closest friends and a few close adults with whom they have developed healthy trustworthy relationships.
As I’ve heard countless times from the students I work with, they tell me that they don’t “know each other like that” -- mainly being that not everyone that they interact with has the purest intentions towards them. I would argue that their defense mechanism then becomes wearing a superficial mask that hides who they truly are -- in other words, they display behaviors that suit their gender roles. Boys will be told sentences like “be tough” “be a man” “Men don’t cry”. This forces our teenage boys to act a certain way to display. The same goes for the young ladies to be sensitive, gentle, that women have to be attentive towards men and that ultimately, that women might not be as superior to men.
Our goal is to guide our students to ultimately develop healthy habits towards self-management. In other words, we want them to display self-care. How we get them to this level is the challenge we take on every day.
3. The "True" Identity:
When they are by themselves, however, they are truly in a state of curiosity about who they are. Our students have a goal to truly understand who they are, through their experiences, their exposure to self-awareness, and ultimately, being able to navigate through their life by understanding that when they are in tune with their emotions and their perception of who they are, nothing can stop them from achieving their goals.
Their identities and just how self-aware of who they are is exactly what we aim to provide to our students with this project. The method in which we empower them is to provide them with the 5 Social-Emotional Learning skills.
Self-Awareness
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Relationship Skills
Responsible Decision Making
All of these skills were put together in our Dia de Los Muertos/Self-Identity Project.
The goal of this project was for our students to achieve these 3 goals:
How are our identities formed?
How do our choices and relationships influence our identity?
Which parts of our identities do we share with others, and which do we conceal?
All of these questions were answered through a Dia de Los Muertos mask.
The project was split up into 3 parts:
The Design
The Poem
The Mask
The Design: Our students had to design the mask, specifically the outside and the inside. Keeping true to the identity lesson, the goal was for our students to realize what identity traits and characteristics they show to the world, which was to be interpreted on the outside of the mask. Furthermore, the inside of the mask was developed from all of the things our students chose to hide from others.
The Poem: Our students also drafted and performed a Self-Empowering poem titled “I Am.” Drawing inspiration from the poem from Rodolfo Gonzalez, I described to our students that they needed to draft a poem of themselves and their own raw thoughts. I will elaborate more on this phase of the project for next time. Regardless, you are all in for a treat.
The Mask: With the help of our Mentor Leadership Team, we were able to distribute materials to over 80 students. Along with our family advocate, we were able to put together painting bags for our kids to come to pick up paint, masks, and materials needed to make the mask. Our Mentor Leadership Team worked hard to achieve this goal. Without them, this would not have been possible. Below are what our students submitted to us. Enjoy!
And then, there were 5.
The Mentor Leadership Team grew by two this month. The team and I conducted interviews to see who we would bring into the organization. We are happy to announce that Michelle Vigil, Chris Sanchez & Jasmine Brown are now a part of the team here at West Leadership Academy. We have no doubt that they will contribute their skillset of building community within their online classrooms, but more importantly, to develop them into being strong, independent, curious, caring, and helpful leaders in their community.
Welcome, you three. The work starts now.
Student Spotlight:
We have multiple students who were shouted out by our Mentor Leadership Team.
See them below:
Kio Edwards: 8th Period
Kio is definitely the kind of student that represents Leadership. Every class, he continues to show engagement through his participation. Out of the 5 SEL, Kio actively demonstrates Responsible Decision Making, by always turning his assignments before asked, encouraging students in the class to participate, and watching out for everyone in case their microphones are off. Thank you, Kio! Keep up the great work!
Daezanae Sanders: 8th Period
Daezanae is one of the more outspoken students in the class. There is never a day where Daezanae needs to be asked for input, she’s ready to take charge and share out her opinion. From the 5 SEL, Daezanae came into class demonstrating Social Awareness. On top of that, she is not afraid to speak up and advocate for herself and participate when no one else is, while also asking questions consistently for her own better understanding. Daezanae, continue as you do, it is highly appreciated!
What Is on the Horizon:
Next month, look forward to reading about our students "I Am" Poem. We will be sharing some exemplary examples of our student's passion for who they are and where they come from. On top of that, I am providing our new Mentor Leaders the opportunity and the space to create their own presentations for a hand-picked lesson from our curriculum. Their creativity, their style, but more importantly, their passion is what I hope to develop as we empower our students here at West Leadership Academy.
As always, thank you for reading our blog. With the help of our new, wonderful Mentor Leadership Team, along with some good, old-fashioned hard work, the future is bright for our students.
Happy reading, y'all.
Cowboys, Out.
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