November at Scott

November felt like it blew by in our YESS classroom because we have been having so much fun! First, the fun stuff! One of our Mentors, Andres, made a video in his broadcasting class that helped the school win a contest over the radio. The school then did a canned food drive and the radio station came out to the school and we had a big dance party! We also had a "Quincebrero" for one of our students on fun Friday. This had been a running joke in the class for a couple weeks because a student had mispoke Quinceanera, so the students in Period 2 spent about 2 weeks planning this party, made invitations, brought cupcakes and drinks, and had all the traditional dances. Can you guess who's Quincebrero it was?

This month we finished our Culture and Identity unit by talking about power and privilege. We did some fun active games to demonstrate power which the kids really enjoyed. Then in the first activity to talk about the privilege we had an auction. Students were broken into groups, all given different amounts of money, and then a list of privileges they had to buy. The auction was fun as they fought over privileges and either wasted all their money on one or were left empty-handed with money at the end. The discussion after the auction was by far my favorite as some students were incredibly angry to start out with the least amount of money and the connections the students made to real life. Then we did an activity called "walk the line" where a statement was read out loud and students had to cross the line if they felt comfortable saying the statement applied to them. Some questions were tough, some brought up some really deep feelings, and some were very empowering for students. But again, the debrief after was where the magic happened. We talked about how privileges can look different, for example, being able to participate in a cultural event and share their heritage with their community, is not a privilege everyone has. Then we talked through the hard stuff: experiencing homelessness, experiencing abuse, experiencing racism. Then the next week we moved into gratitude since it was Thanksgiving! Students created a thankfulness tree, wrote letters to teachers, and participated in a thankfulness class Instagram challenge.

This month I would like to highlight a very special mentee named Alexis. Alexis started the school emanating the squirrel mentality. He had a lot of trouble paying attention, staying on task and completing his work. By parent-teacher conferences in October, Alexis had not turned in one assignment. As I sat with his mom and told her what was going, all of which Alexis had to translate, she looked at him with tears in her eyes said, "Hijo, estoy muy preocupado. Que esta pasando?" Son, I am very worried. What is going on? Alexis didn't have an answer and looked down at his shoes and said he was sorry and that he would try to make it up to her. By the end of that week Alexis had all his missing work turned in, was paying attention in class, and was ignoring his friends who usually distracted him. A couple weeks later Alexis would come into class and ask to do work for Science class. He said he had a big test later in the week and he really needed to study. On fun Friday, while other students were playing games and talking, Alexis sat and studied. When he got up to leave he shouted at me, "Miss, I am so nervous!" I told him that he has been working hard all week and I was sure he would do great. And what do you know, Alexis got a perfect score!

The Mentor I would like to highlight this month is Alejandro. This is his second year as a mentor, and while overall he is a great student, he loves to play video games on his computer. Alejandro has a mentee who loves to do the same and is often just zoned out. The past two weeks, after having a pretty in-depth conversation with Alejandro about his role as a mentor, he has really turned it around and focused on helping his mentee. They both have been actively engaged in group activity and discussion as well as completing their work on time!