Event #2 Open House

November 8, 2014 was when the open house event took pace. It took place in the Murray center and to be honest this was my first time ever going. I had never gone or been to an open house in my life before. For me I thought there was a lot of people and it looked pretty full and great but then while talking to the other youth development members, they told me that this was not as packed as other years and that baffled me. But there was definately a lot going on, we had tours and different lectures on the different programs ric offer. Even I was able to to speak about Youth development in one of the lectures which was awesome. This helped me to practice my elevator speech and the fact that we had practiced it a few weeks before really did help. I was able to draw what i needed to talk about and the important points and facts i felt were really needed to exaplain our program.

At first we had a small space on the table that was shared with education. At first it felt pretty crowded, there were so many of us and there really wasn't enough space, but once we got out own table I felt as if things had changed and we were able to be out there. I also felt that because we had our table many people seemed interested, because they wanted to know what youth development is all about and what we did. It was create trying to recruit people and telling them about our amazing program. There were so many booths out there and we definitely did our best in trying to get people to learn more about youth development. I felt that out of all the programs out there Youth development and Biology were two groups that really had a good presence in the room.

Event #1 Civilizations of Mesoamerica

The civilizations of Mesoamerica was a small event, where we started with a dialogue on what we knew of the different Mesoamerican civilizations that had existed. I realized
I didn't really know much about the different civilizations that existed, I just new of the 3 major civilazations which were the Mayan's, the Incas and the Aztecs. After the dialogue we had professor David Espinosa (this link gives you more information of the professor what he does and who he is) talk to us about the different cultures, there way of religion, the food they grew, how they survived and the different customs that had existed in each of the civilizations he had mention. They had a few things in common like the fact that each civilization worshiped a different animal. Because each animal represented different things. They all also had their own system or writing and reading. They also believed in hierarchy, where the king was their leader.
But each civilization had there differences like the Toltecs liked to shaped the heads of their leaders from birth so that the leaders looked different from everyone else.Some believed more in power, others belived more in what the lands could produce. Each had their own way of living and exsiting, although some civilizations were stronger than others, they all lived among each other.
 here is more information if interested. (this link gives more in dept explanation.)

Through this event it helped me think about today and how each of the civilizations that used to exist are similar to the way today's world is. some countries believe differently than others, yet we all work together and we learn from each other. we have a different way of running things, or believing in things but we all exist in this world and each country somehow finds a way to make things work. This makes me think about today and working with all of those different cultural boundaries, we each come from different places and are used to doing things in a different way, the things is to learn from each other and grow.  We need to learn as much as we can because as a youth worker i will be put in situations were i will be working with youth from different ages, cultural backgrounds and have different beliefs than I do. So I need to take the time to learn of these different cultural beliefs and backgrounds to lean to work with them and be able to help them in everything that they need.
This also reminded me of an article I read a while back about working with different cultures.

Btw sorry i really didn't take pictures of the actual event, i forgot while i was there.


\

RK Resilient Kids

After watching the video on Resilient Kids I thought about how amazing it would be to have that. As a student myself with all of life's curves and the stress that we have to face, a few moments of 5 minutes to be able t calm down and relax really does help.
During the day we end up going through HIGHS and L
                                                                                         O
                                                                                            W
                                                                                                S

But we go through so much that we end up rowdy and struggling, going through all types of emotions and feelings during the day. Sometimes we just need to vent, other times we needs ways, techniques or even the tools to help us be able to R E L A X.
To take a b r e a t h e r and just let it      go.

This also helps me connect on how we were talking about cultural boundaries, how giving a chance to talk about what we are going through can help. In being able to dialogue about it we are releasing stress and being able to calm down can also help us in being able to relax and Focus.

RW Video - Working across different cultural boundaries

After seeing the RW video it made me think about my education and how I never really had a good schooling experience. from middle school to high school i can honestly say only two teachers had really affected me and inspired me to do better. The majority of the teachers that I had were teachers you could bribe for good grades or they spiked their drinks so they didn't have to really deal with us. Other teachers were deported or switched in the beginning or middle of the year so we had to get new teachers and try to accommodate to the change. It made school seem pointless at the time and I thought that everything i was learning really wasn't going to help me. My school in general just wasn't helpful, they didn't help me with getting into college, fafsa, or the steps i needed. I felt very lost trying to get help and finding my way out. I am the first generation in my family to be able to graduate high school, my family was happy with that i didn't have to go to college if i didn't want to, so there really wasn't that expectation. But I CHOOSE to come to college and try to get  better education.

Thinking about all these things makes me think about how i am going to have to help teach, reach, inspire, connect, and help students as well. A lot of amazing points were brought in the video things about culture, and learning differences, teacher student relationships. As a youth worker I want to help inspire kids. help them to enjoy what they to, and maybe they will feel motivated to learn. If we strive to help them, and give them some merit they will probably strive to do better. But sometimes our language or the way we put ourselves out there may affect the way the student sees you. I though about how youth in action does "bug-in/out" thats an awesome way for teachers to find out whats going on with their students. What is happening and what they need to know. it gives them and insight to the childs life and what they are going through instead of assuming. We as future works need to try and stay away from assuming and find out directly, ask questions, see how their day went, ask if there is anything we can help them with. 

Students want some relativity with what their learning, so take certain examples of Rosa Parks and Abraham lincoln, find new ways to teach it and connect it to them. I love how they talked about taking rosa parks and showing how she was an activist before and relating that to how it can be used today. Its the same with learning about Abraham Lincoln maybe take the Gettisburg Adress and have the students try to relate by having to write their own letter in a hard moment. How would they try to cheers others and give the light of hope in though time. When we take time to relate it to our lives, then we begint o see how useful this can be, the amazing changes these people did and how they can inspire us to change and be better. 

Ri Comic con

I got to go to RI comic con and it was a blast this past weekend. So happy my costume was done in time. It took a lot of work and very little sleep to get it done but it was all worth it at the end to hear all the comments and how much people appreciated my work!!!

Im so proud and now that the con is over i can finally have some good sleep, which my body was longing for.

Nakkula - identity context

As I have said before I'm taking child development right now so i feel as if I understand what is being talked about.
Ericksons 8 stages of development gives you a bit of an insight on how humans develop from the time their born until death. When going through all the stages one applies them to themselves to see where they are and some feel as if they understand Ericksons stages because we have already gone through some. Although I feel like each stage can be mixed or change its very helpful in
understanding students and adolescents. Its good to know of these different stages because this way we know how to help the child that we are working with. We have some idea of what to do and maybe guide them.

The four identity status, helps us to feel and understand how many of us have felt many times. youth especially adolescents face this. They are not sure who they want to be, or what they want to be, they struggle with reality and making choice. This is not all students but we have all been there in that spot and moment in which we question whether or not we were meant to be where we are. Some of us still struggle to feel happy with who we are. and that's part of life. But these are the things we are going to face. We are going to meet teens and adolescents who stubble with accepting who they are and feeling comfortable. and we will be here to guide them and help them. We need to help direct them so that they don't feel as lost and can accept and be happy with who they are.

After reading all of this and thinking about I feel as if Bruce wayne aka Batman is stuck somewhere in intimacy and isolation and generatively vs stagnation. I feel like he is stuck there because he always have to fight himself on whether or not he wants to be Batman. He has intimacy issues because of the whole batman persona. Not only because of batman but because of everything he has gone though in life. He fights with the whole idea of generatively vs stagnation. He is bruce wayne he  a bachelor and he is supposed to be this guys whom is supposed to know his business, is smart and a playboy. But in all actuality he loves solitude and he is the kind of person who likes to be challenged. I also feel as if he doesn't have identity achievement because he hasn't accepted who he is, he struggles with choice of staying batman or letting him go and living a 'normal' life. He hasn't accepted it or embraced it he just lives with it. 

Nakkula - The construction of Adolecense

I really liked this article and found it quite interesting. I am taking child development right now so the Zone of proximal development and scaffolding is quite fresh for me. I really like how Nakkulat gave a more in depth view of ZPD and Scaffolding. This article made me think about my own relationships with my professors, counselors and many from many others. It also made me think about a conversation we had in ALLIED today about being able to communicate to teachers how your feeling and what your going through. Many of us have that attitude of ill just suck it up. SO we try to balance everything, we struggle and then if we fail we try to explain whats going on but it could be too late because while you had the opportunity you didn't do it and so the teacher could've assumed you just weren't trying your hardest. I know it seems like we need to be brave and we want to be strong but its not a weakness to tell others how you are feeling and what you are going through.

I also loved how it made think about how even teachers and counselors and even principles can still growing and learning and developing. Its hard to believe because we see them as older than us more experienced than us and they know everything. But Just as we learn from them sometimes they too can learn from us. This is something that I hope to take with me wherever I go. May we learn to talk to them and ask them "is everything alright?" even a check-in now and then wouldn't hurt. Just like students should try and communicate what they are going through teachers should also try to seem like they want to help and seem openly available. I honestly hope I can perform this, sometimes over years we tend to forget and sometimes it can be hard to break old habits but This was so insightful for me and it helps shape and mold us all.