Monday, December 8, 2014

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.




Tuesday, December 2, 2014



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. 

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.