Yikes! I messed up my life plan! Grades 9 and 10

NOTE: both classes were challenged to take daily notes in the 2 or 3 classes they are doing the worst in. Please encourage this!

With both classes I put all of their names in a bag and pulled out one and then pulled a problem out of another bag and applied it to the student's life plan.

For the freshmen the story ended up being that Ramon had a life tragedy at the age of 19 while he was in college. The rest of the class decided that his tragedy was that he got kicked out of school for doing drugs and he lost his scholarship. They decided he should deal with his drug problem first, then get a job and find a way to get back into school. Ramon certainly didn't like being even the hypothetical main character and said he will never end up in that situation. We talked about addictive behaviors and how they can be inherited.

With the sophomores, the unlucky one was Devin who during his junior year bowed to peer pressure. Again, the kids decided that Devin was caught smoking weed and he got into lots of trouble with his school who demanded that he go to rehab. Devin said if that happened he would feel bad and would want to apologize. Again, we talked about how getting caught up in this kind of behavior really can affect your education and scholarships. We talked about surrounding yourself with positive people.

The freshmen finished working on an activity called "Finding Your Voice."

The sophs discussed the personal statement question #4: Describe a time when you felt at a disadvantage because of your or your family’s educational level, cultural background and/or financial status. Explain in detail how you worked through the situation. How have these types of experiences influenced your day-to-day actions and/or your goals for the future?

We spent quite a bit of time discussing this question and our answers to it. In the sophomore class we have students who have grown up in varying states of poverty and some who fall between poverty and middle class so they don't qualify for opportunities that the lower income kids do. We also have some middle class kids in there. So it was an interesting discussion around how they are disadvantaged because of their income level. We also had a raucous discussion about reparations for African-Americans.