Blog 8

For this assignment we watched the Creating Culturally Relevant Education.  I enjoyed watching this video because I related to it. I grew up in Providence and have been in similar situation as these youth.

One thing that stood out to me was one of the youth saying that it would have been better for them if the teachers acted as their mentors as well as their teacher. I believe it is important for youth to create a connection with the teacher. I believe that a relationship between teacher and their student is important for the students success and education. Teacher should have relationship with their students to know their problems and that way they will know what is affecting them. If the teacher has a relationship with their students the teacher could help their youth to focus in school also try to find a solution. I look back and I wish that my teachers and I would have had that connection because I feel things would have been different. The teacher would have understood me in an other level.

Not only student and teachers relationship are important but also youth and parents relationship. Where parents could know what’s going on with their child to support them.  For example, I grew up with my parents where I had a great  relationship with them. My parents were involved if I was having a good day and always asked me if I had a problem. My parents were also worried about my education where they wanted me to get good grades. Parents are a great support for youth. 

It’s important to understand the diverse cultures. As  a youth worker its important to recognize where the youth comes from and learn about their experience. We know to know that everyone is different.

Resilient kids is a program that offers an innovative yoga and mindfulness curriculum working with the students in their schools. The programs mission is the social, emotional and academic growth though mindfulness. Resilient kids are now in many schools in Rhode Island.

Before the Video I did not know about resilient kids. Watching the video taught me what they do. The program  has improved youth’s academic and behavior. I believe its great for children to practice this in schools. It’s a way to stay positive in schools and better the students. In just a few minutes can make the difference. It helps by calming and relaxing students. As seen in the video the yoga stretch helps the youth calm their mind. In many cases youth can’t do this on their own. Resilient is a great tool to learn how to clam and focus in school. for example, one of the boys said he’s doing better and in school (exams, better grades). The other said thanks to resilient kids he likes going to school. Mindfulness helps youth improve self-esteem, mood, and decease anxiety and stress. What I can tell from the video is that Resilient kids is making great progress in youth with their mindfulness techniques.

I hope that Resilient kids continues making change in youth to continue their progress. I hope that their works continues so we could have them in all school systems. 

more on Resilient kids 

For my second event I attended the annual Rhode Island College open house. I have never attended an open house so it was a great experience. The open was for freshman and transfer students.

When I got to the Murray center, I was unsure what to expect. I thought it was going to be crowded but there was a great amount of people there. I saw lots of parents and students. There were many professors, stuff and students helping out with the event. I started looking around for the YDEV table. We were located in the back.   Corinne and classmates welcomed me.  We had a table with the education. We had bubbles, pencils, candy and brochures. Justina and I started walked around to talk to students to see if they were interest in the YDEV program. After we got a  table that was not being used and made it ours. We put all of stuff there and made it official we were the YDEV table separate from the Education table. We had students interest and we had social work students sending people over from their table.

I felt we had a good amount of students interest in the YDEV program. The students were excited about the program. They had many question so did the parents. I was excited to let people know about our great program. I also talked to a senator from Providence that was there and tried to convince is he’s son to join our program.

One thing that I would do different is get a bigger sign or get a banner. Another thing is maybe have a laptop or screen to show what we do and talk about our program. This reminds me of Digital Native (Prensky, 2001). The reason it reminds of me of Digital Native is because we are growing in a society where technology is important. It also related to our YDEV classes, where we use Blogs and technology.

more about our program : http://www.ric.edu/educationalstudies/youthDevelopment.php 

Plan of study: https://sites.google.com/site/ricydev/homehttps://sites.google.com/site/ricydev/home

Nakkula Chapter 2

                         Identity in context

I found this reading to be great. I took child development a while ago so this was a refresher.

Context Mapping helps people figure that they are having a crisis adolescent figure out who they are, who they want to be. In addition what role they play in society. In this reading, Mitch asked Julian to a list various spaces and relationships, he had to write each day for example, family, school, and activities. After Mitch asked him to write-down what people expected from him such as relationships and activities that he has.  He also asked him to pay close attention to how he felt and to note when Julian was feelings unsafe in a situation and when feels uneasy.

The concept for the map represents ideas and information as boxes or circle. It connects with labels arrows.

My context map:

RIC: student, youth Development major, classes, schoolwork, internship, classmates

Home: family, sister, daughter, pets

Social: work, coworker, social medias, friends

Foreclosed identity: “when a person commits to a life direction  without exploring it carefully and without experimenting with alternative.”

Diffusion identity: “a state where there have been little exploration or active consideration of a particular identity and no psychological commitment to one.”

Identity Moratorium: “development state in which one actively explores roles and beliefs, behaviors and relationships but refrain from making commitment. ”

Achieved identity: “In this status the individual has successfully  integrates their ego- identity need from the past, within the present  and into the future and therefore can therefore display a certain level of self acceptance and strength across changing context.”

Nakkula chapter one

 

The Construction of Adolescence

Nakkulat Toshalis first chapter in The Construction of Adolescence was a great read. I liked the fact that it had the story of Ms. Petersen and Antwon, it made it easy to read. I believe having the story made it to understand the reading.

This first chapter was about the relationship between imagine from past experience and they interpret the theories. Nakkula talks about Antwon’s behavior and self understanding are being affected by Ms. Petersen’s toward him. The reason Antwon acts different toward Ms. Perersen is because of the contribution and authorization she gave to him. According to Nakkula, the key is that educators thinking should be transparent as possible for students to connect with them.

I believe that educator should not base experience to new students. Also should not place preconceived judgment onto other students.

For educator it is important to understand their student’s way of thinking and how they think. It is important to understand where they are coming from and respect where they came from. Its important to listen “Educator must understand the approximate level or nature of their student’s thinking.”

A way to have a connection with a students is to work as a team. The teacher might have the title that does not mean  they have all the knowledge in every situation.  The way a teacher gains knowledge is from their student learning how there are thinking and process the information.

Egg Drop

For this class we did the egg drop. I had never done this activity before, so I did not know what to expect. When I arrived to the class I received a star (a green star). After we got into groups according to the color of the star we received. We got a box and couldn’t open onto we were settle down with our group. We went to the hallway. When we opened the box we had rubber bands, condoms, shopping bags, strings, balloons and paper.  With the materials that we were given we had to protect our egg. My group decided to cover our egg with condom and many soft objects that we were given.  When the Youth in Action came and took away material that we had. At first we I was upset because I thought we did a good in protecting our egg. After that we continue to use material that we had in our box. We thought our egg was going to make it which unfortunately it didn’t. When we were outside the other groups had more materials than we did. At the end my group were upset that we failed.

This activity reminded me of the Ullucci reading.  The reason it reminded of this reading was because if children don’t see what they are missing until they see someone else with it. what I mean by that is that if they don’t see  that are missing resources until they see these children with more resources. Many children might feel they are being set to fail, because they don’t have the resources necessary . In my opinion I didn’t know what I was missing onto I saw other people that had a better education than I had. I knew that something was missing but didn’t know how to get a hold of these resources.

I have witness that some communities get more resources than other. For example, in Rhode Island. Urban schools have less starting from textbooks and old computes. When you look at other schools they have Ipads and more technology. I remember when I was in middle school I used the same textbook my brother used and were seven years apart and these same books were still being used. The school system want children to have the same education and expect them to be successful. But how can these children have the same education without the same resources.

Ullucci article

The Ullucci
article shows us how poverty affects youth. Poverty affects Schools, they are separated
by different classes. Also  they are divided
by race. Its happens to be that schools are being separated to geographical area
the minority schools end up going to the same school. Where there is lack of resources
for these students.  Many schools today
are being segregated. Many will argue this is not true. But if you think about
it, it’s true. Where parents have more money there are better education. But in
urban the education is not so great.  In
the Ullucci article also shows that children that come from   an
impoverished background move from place to place or are homeless (Ullucci,
2014). Many children living in poverty are seen as the “other” (Ullucci, 2014).
People may say that those who are living in poverty are lazy or don’t want
to live a different life than what they are in right now.  This is not the
case. There are many factors that come with living in poverty.

 

This reminds
me of  Digital Natives (Prensky) school
are low in resource because there are less resources for these students that
live in urban areas where there are not getting all the resources and the
education needed. Where there are not expose to digital. In the long run its
going to affects them. Where we are living in a digital world

I am
planning to stay in the city of Providence (urban)  and work with the community. I would like to
work with the school department to try to make education better. I like the
fact that in Providence there are a lot diversity . Working in the urban area
will help me be able to learn what can make the city of Providence better. I
would like to work close with the youth to help them be successful.