Where We're Going..

yessinstitutehr
Feb 8, 2021
5 min read

Good Morning and Welcome to 2021!

As we are embarking on what seems to be a year that has already given us much to balance, one thing is certain: The grind continues for our students to take on new challenges.

One of the new challenges that our students are to now face together is the return to in-person instruction this month! While there are some concerns from all members of our community as we make our way back into the classroom, I believe that we have the proper plan to execute for the well being of our students and our community.

In this blog, you will read about the following items:

Lessons covered: Semester Final, The 6 Universal Emotions, and The End Violence Project
Student Spotlight: 6 Universal Emotions
What’s Next: The End Violence Project

Lessons Covered

For our final project of the semester, the Mentor Leadership Team and I decided on making a unique final examination for our students to take. It came in the form of a Flipgrid video recording of themselves answering 5 questions, including their “I Am / Yo Soy” poem.

They are as follows:

Recite your “I Am / Yo Soy” poem in the video!

Personal Values: Speak on them

Your top value and why it is important to you.

A value that you are striving to develop into your life.

2. What is one thing you will not allow into your life?

3. Think about the 5 Social Emotional Learning skills (SEL) Chose one of them. Who in your life demonstrates this Social-Emotional skill (SEL)? How and why?

4. Which Social-Emotional skills have you improved? How and Where? Ex: in a class, at home, with a friend, with the outside world.

The purpose of this exam was for our students to express themselves in their own unique way. More specifically, the purpose of this exam was for our students to reflect on their goals and their growth in the class since the beginning of August. I believe that the videos speak for themselves.

Every month, I will release a few videos so y'all can see the growth of our students.

Below, you will find the videos of our Mentor Leadership Team. Enjoy!

Naisett D.

Viviana T.

Michelle V.

Chris S.

Jasmine B.

Once we started the new year, the team and I decided to implement changes for the following semester. We decided that we wanted to collaborate with each other more, as our combined creativity and witty energy was exactly what we needed to switch up the environment and atmosphere within our digital classroom. Here is the layout:

1st week: Introductory Lesson

2nd Week: Lesson planned out together and facilitated by each of the Mentor Leaders

3rd Week: Tutoring time for students

4th Week: A lesson planned & facilitated by our Mentor Leader, gathered from data by our students.

The next lesson that we planned out together was an introduction to the 6 Universal Emotions. The Mentor Leadership Team and I were able to plan out an interactive week-long lesson that included students to relive their own personal experiences, as well as being able to identify who was universal emotion in their family.

For example, the movie “Inside Out” has exactly all 6 universal emotions. We spent two classes dissecting the movie. Afterward, the assignment was for our students to be able to call out who was who in their family. Here is a shout out to our student, Irma Contreras, who was very clear in who each person was in their family. Irma has show growth in our class these past months. Michelle and I are extremely happy and proud of her for her

We are also adding the Jamboard of Angel Baeza, a student in our 5th period. Angel has what I believe, very great social-awareness and self-awareness skills. Angel is very open and honest with our class, and our 5th period is better because of it! Thanks for everything you do, Angel!

In the 4th week, our Mentor Leaders all put together their own respective lessons with the guidance of each other and were able to peer-critique each other before we facilitated the lesson. Unsurprisingly, the majority of our students wanted to know more about Fear!, which is exactly what our Leads did. However, each one of them was different in how they envisioned facilitating the discussion, work, and takeaways, which I believe is why it is important to empower each one of them to make their vision into a reality.

We will continue this pathway into February and March, allowing this team to truly keep working together as we finish the year off. Nevertheless, that leads us to what is next: The End Violence Project.

What’s Next: The End Violence Project at West

February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month is dedicated to raising awareness about healthy and unhealthy relationships, warning signs, and prevention. Adolescents and adults are often unaware that teens experience dating violence, which is why we have taken the initiative into serving our community by promoting healthy relationships, and it is not possible without our experts coming to help us.

We have partnered with Monica Bies & Maria Limon of the End Violence Project from the University of Colorado at Denver, in hopes of educating our students on the importance of promoting healthy, long-lasting relationships. We are in the midst of our current plan and we will cap it off with a presentation that will be put together by our team and our wonderful colleagues from UCD, where we will present to our entire school community. Suffice to say, I am extremely excited and proud of all the work that our team has put together this past month.

I cannot wait to share with all of you who read this blog what our team was able to accomplish in the month of February. Let me tell you, you are in for a surprise.

As I finish writing this blog, I sit here with hope in our community. I see what this pandemic has done to our students, our families, and our dreams. I have experienced this first hand: From packing up and uprooting our lives as we knew it back in March of 2020, to now finally seeing students slowly but surely start to come back into the building they once called home. I saw the fear, confusion, and doubt that they carried with them as they walked through the halls that first day back, yet I am now seeing the turn come around. Students coming in excited, students making sure they all stand 6-ft apart. I see that our students are encouraging each other to come back together, but most importantly, just seeing that our wonderful teachers and staff all have been very supportive of each other and our students as we now enter a new part of our lives. With all of the uncertainty that surrounded us these last few months, I certainly hope that the worst is behind us and that as we look forward, we only see better days ahead.

Thank you to all of you for supporting my class by simply reading this blog. You might skim it, you might read it all. Still, I am grateful for being here in this position as I write away all the beautiful moments I am privileged enough to share with my students, my Mentor Leadership Team, and my resilient community. Please continue sending us positive messages and encouragement, we need it now more than ever.

Happy reading, y’all.

Cowboys, Out.