Restarting This Blog!

Here is a photo of me and two of my mentees, Devin and Chyna. They are both Juniors and I have known them both since they were in 8th grade. My, how they've grown. And what a joy it is to be a part of their lives.

Joys: Seeing my students compare the notes they took in my class to the notes of the intern and analyze how well they did compared to him. Baby steps.
Hearing Will (sometimes Peace Custodian, sometimes Peace musician and director extraordinaire) tell me the story of proposing to Taneisha. It gave me goosebumps. He had other people involved like Taneisha's daughter and sister, the restaurant waiters were all in on it and he even had a musician! (Of course.) So sweet.

Concerns: One of our alums is having trouble focusing on her studies, another is threatening to go to NYC to open a cupcake business (I think she's kidding). Also really concerned about some of our students lack of access to health care and food! If parent doesn't or can't provide either of these, the kid is just sunk. It's very painful to watch, we intervene when/where we can, but it never feels like enough.

Here's what we did in CLASS:

Today the Freshmen and Sophomores practiced their note taking. Intern Shawn took notes during class and so did the students. At the end they compared notes.

We reviewed the students midterm grades (which are not pretty) and discussed how they got this grade and what they need to do to improve. We also discussed our upcoming Field Trips and activities, which are:
Wed., April 20: 11am to 7pm trip to Starbucks corporate headquarters and dinner
Friday, May 5: 3:30-5:30pm Living Legacy Project, Creative Brainstorming
Friday, May 13: 6-9:30pm Archbishop Desmond Tutu

We then reviewed the reading we did on Wednesday from John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.

Students have a make-up assignment to do that is due on Wednesday:

Think of a song that motivates you, another song that calms you, and another song that cheers you up.
Attached are three note cards.
On the first note card write the name of the song that motivates you and a few of your favorite lyrics.
On the second note card write the name of the song that calms you and a few of your favorite lyrics.
On the third note card write the name of the song that cheers you up and a few of your favorite lyrics.