Friday, October 30, 2015

Ranum Update 10/26 - 10/29

Welcome back to the Ranum Update!

This week was highlighted with student led parent teacher conferences on back to back nights along with some great poster designs and skits around Emotional Dwarves.

Mentor Monday started off with self evaluations. This gave mentors a chance to honestly evaluate how they believe they've been performing in class and with their mentees'. After that, we got into some deeper talks about mentee successes and challenges. Some challenges were mentees getting suspended, getting their mentees to open up more about personal issues and how to refocus mentee's if they are off track. Overall, some great talks and we even implemented some strategies throughout the week to combat those struggles.

Our big topic this week was Emotional Dwarves. I was impressed by how easily the student's related Hot Buttons with Emo Dwarves and how they lead into each other. They were quick to understand Bully and Gossipy because those are trending right now in their lives. Some of the harder ones like Sulky and Vengy needed further explanation. Over the course of hearing each one, many students would say "oh that's me" or "I've been {insert Emo Dwarf here} before". It was nice to hear students share out times either they've been an Emo Dwarf or times they've noticed others being an Emo Dwarf.

Student's had the option to create a poster that showed an example of each Emo Dwarf, or they could act out a skit based on that Emo Dwarf. They were very entertaining and it helped others learn what exactly each Emo Dwarf looked like in person.



The student led parent teacher conferences went very well and it was a great turnout overall. It was nice to put a face to the voices I've talked to over the phone and also to explain more about the program and how their child is doing. I still look forward to connecting with parents that have escaped me so far!

I can't believe it's November next week! Have a great weekend!

Friday, October 23, 2015

Ranum Update 10/19 - 10/23

Hello all!

Monday started off great with some solid debates around uniform policy, war, students rights, and how much dislike they have for Donald Trump. Valid arguments were made on both sides. Most students believe that we should work towards peace and we even went over why Russia and the U.S disagree.

The middle of the week had us wrapping up Hot Buttons and turning our focus on the 5 core emotions and I was impressed with how well the students understood the different types of emotions. We began class by using the letters in our first names to come up with different emotions starting with those letters. The kids were very creative with most emotions and only needed a little help with some of the more challenging letters (Z, Y, X). Later in the class, I started calling out different emotions and it was the students jobs to see which of the 5 core emotions they fit into. Often times, they realized that they would fall into multiple categories.


At the end of the week we did a team building exercise called the Egg Drop Challenge. Student's were put into small groups and had to construct an object that would protect an egg from a 10 foot fall given a limited amount of supplies. Some groups were very creative, while some groups requested their egg early to lock it into their contraption and ended up with a broken egg before dropping. Overall, it was a lot of fun and students did a great job of working together and trying to come up with the safest creation for their egg.


Have a great weekend!

Monday, October 19, 2015

Ranum Update 10/12 - 10/16

The first week back after an amazing wedding and honeymoon and the students welcomed me back with a very thoughtful poster and many questions.

While I was away the students completed their Life Maps (Pictures below). The mentor and mentee pairs, as well as myself, learned more about their pasts and different things they've gone through. Most students were very open about their pasts and it made for great conversations. They also participated in an ice breaker activity that had students silently separate themselves into one of three groups based on the colored dot they had on their forehead, however, one of the groups only had one student in it. The whole point was for students to realize that sometimes we include or exclude others based on meaningless characteristics.




This past week I had a great conversation with all the mentors and they filled me in on everything I missed while I was out. We went over learning targets for the week, based on our lessons, which were Recognizing Beliefs and Hot Buttons Part 1. Recognizing Beliefs had students take a deeper look at what a belief is and some of their personal beliefs about different topics. We had some great discussions about what one student believed vs what another student believed in. For example, the topic of religion was brought up and discussed. Next we moved onto Hot Buttons and we went in depth to find out what some examples of hot buttons are, what can trigger those feelings, and different ways we can go about handling those emotions.

Overall it was a great first week back and I'm excited to keep plugging away here at Ranum!