The Weekly Ranum: Edition #24

Hi all,

This past week we had our usually Mentor Monday and Tutoring Tuesday.

For the rest of the week we focused on Dating Violence/Abuse. We had some really deep conversations on Wednesday where students shared their experiences and views on the topic.

Many students have seen some sort of dating violence/abuse either in their personal lives or somewhere within their family/friend networks. All students were at least somewhat aware of the topic because of movies/tv shows. We also discussed a lot of the teen dating violence statistics and I think that hit home a little more for students about how real of an issue this is.

The rest of the week we created Public Service Announcements to educate ourselves and others about the topic.

Have a great week!

The Weekly Ranum: Edition #23

Hello all,

Last week we finished up talking about bullying with some skits and examples of what it may look like in the middle school world.

We also watched some clips about bullying, and specifically, about cyber bullying and had a discussion about who has dealt with that in the past.

Looking forward to this week and Emo Trolls!

The Weekly Ranum: Edition #22

Hello and welcome back!

It was a pretty casual week with the snow storm on Thursday that kept us to about only half the school showing up.

Tutoring Tuesday went well with a lot of students reading articles on NewsELA. It's a great website with relevant articles and short quizzes to test reading comprehension.

On Wednesday we talked about bullying and had some good discussions about our experiences with bullying.

Friday was a day full of team builders!

Have a great week!

The Weekly Ranum: Edition #21

Hello and welcome back!

This past week we talked about Hot Buttons. Students really like the concept because we can all relate to different things that happen in our lives that "push our buttons" sometimes and cause us to react in some way, shape or form (usually negatively).

It did take a little explaining about each individual hot button and how there can be two ways of reacting. For example, a student who receives a bad grade and feels like they're not good enough can react in two possible ways. One way, they could always try to be perfect and the best so they don't ever have that feeling of not being good enough again. Or they avoid giving their full effort because they feel like if they do and fail again, it will be worse than just giving a mediocre effort for a mediocre grade.

Here are a couple examples of student work:

Thanks for reading!

The Weekly Ranum: Edition #20

Hi everyone!

Last week we finished up Belief Systems with some individual research about how our lives would look in 10 years if we lived a life of empowering beliefs (thinking positively) and what our lives would look like if we only had limited beliefs (thinking negatively).

The students were pretty creative overall and it showed the different goals and dreams that students want to achieve. Many students wanted to be done with college in the next 10 years, some married, some traveling the world and others in their dream job. We all agreed that living a life of empowering beliefs will be way more beneficial in the long run than having limited beliefs about ourselves.

Last week concluded belief systems and students are excited for the next topic...tune in next week to find out!

The Weekly Ranum: Edition #19

Hello and welcome back to the Weekly Ranum!

This past week we worked on Belief Systems. Students did some research and read some articles about empowering and limiting beliefs and were assigned to create a poster based on the article they read.

The easiest way for students to understand the concept of where their beliefs come from was for them to look around at their families, communities and friend groups and think about their reactions, words and thoughts about different topics.

Students did a great job of understanding that empowering beliefs build them up and are positive thoughts and limiting beliefs are meant to slow them down and be a negative in their life.

We will complete belief systems this week with some individual projects. Have a great week!

The Weekly Ranum: Edition #18

Hello and welcome back!

Hope everyone had a great holiday break!

With our first week back we had a lot of mentees testing very well before break and leveling up in their math and literacy classes which ended up having them moved around to different periods.

We worked on the Apple Pie Theory for a few days. All of the students understood the concept and it was great to see some of the designs they made to represent the theory. The idea is that there are some people in our lives that basically either take too much or too little control and responsibility and some that are actually pretty balanced whether it be in group projects, friendships or any other situation involving people.

Here's an example of some of their work:

Hope you enjoyed reading, have a great week!