Resilient Kids Video

After watching the video and reading about Resilient Kids, I think it is a great organization.  Resilient Kids, is an organization whose program promotes the development of life-long skills, which includes focus, self-esteem, self-confidence, balance, empathy, and community(http://www.resilientkids.org).  From the video I learned that for youth it is harder to have memory of the learning that they have done inside the classroom outside the classroom.  As described in the video during a yoga session the youth stretch and do yoga poses that will help to calm their mind.  Youth on their own don’t exactly know how to calm down when a teacher tells them to calm down, and Resilient kids gives them a toolbox of ways to learn how to do that.  Youth can go as high as they can with their emotions, but coming down from it is a difficult skill set.  The principal of the Silver Spring Elementary School made a great comment about how children’s brains aren't wired to settle and calm down but they can with practice, which I think Resilient Kids really helps them do practice having the skill set to focus and balance their emotional and social challenges.  Resilient Kids is really giving youth tools that they can take throughout their whole lives when it comes to stress management and dealing with challenges inside and outside the classroom.  According to the Resilient Kids video training students in mindfulness improves working memory, attention, academic skills, emotional regulation, and self-esteem.  Mindfulness also improves self-esteem, mood, and decreases anxiety, stress, and fatigue.  From what I have seen in the video Resilient Kids is making great strides in mindfulness techniques and tailoring to the youths needs of distressing in helping them to face challenges both inside and outside of school.

Here are some more benefits of yoga in a school setting: Click Here

"A Talk to Teachers"/RW Video

“A Talk to Teachers” By James Baldwin was a very interesting article to read.  The one statement that really jumped out at me was how he talks about how children are very different from adults.  He explains that children are not aware that drawing their own conclusions can be dangerous in the society that we live in because as adults we can intimidate children to believe what we want them to believe and not have their own thought process or way of thinking. I can infer that he is talking about a white child because in the next sentence he explains how a black child looking at the world is aware and able to draw his own conclusions about why his mother works so hard and why his father is always on edge.  In some way this child knows that they are different and it is in school where he discovers why his family and life is a certain way.  When working across all different cultural boundaries we have to learn about the contributions that that particular culture has made to the current culture that we live in.  For example, Baldwin says, “If one managed to change the curriculum in all schools so that Negroes learned more about  themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you’d be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history.  How can we expect others to want to learn about our culture if we refuse to learn about theirs or really teach about how their culture affected our history and how they made a difference.  When working with different cultures it is apparent that is right and just to teach them that they have the right to examine everything and question what they feel isn't right.

The video that was seen in class really opened my eyes to how youth really want a mentor type of relationship with their teacher and not just someone there telling them what to do all the time without a bond being built.  Youth also want to be able to learn creatively and in a way that they can understand better.
Here is a great article about valuing diversity in a classroom setting, but this can also be applied to any setting Diversity

Event #2 Open House

On Saturday, October 8, 2014 I attended Rhode Island Colleges Admissions Open House.  When I first walked into the Murray Center I thought it would have been more packed than it was, but there was so much going on outside the Murray Center like tours of the college and a lecture about the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development.  As soon as I walked to our Youth Development Booth I noticed we had pencils, bubbles, and candy. Corinne introduced me to a girl that was interested in preschool was ready to talk to me about Youth Development and how preschool intertwines with it.  I talked to her about what I do for a job and how Youth Development has helped me pursue what I want to do through having an internship.  Talking to someone for the first time and using the elevator speech, that I had used in class really brought me out of the “box” I was in and helped me to feel more comfortable talking to others.   As I was standing behind the booth I noticed a girl and the adults she was with staring in our direction, so I decided to ask Justina if she would want to come with me and go up to her and talk to her about RIC and the Youth Development program.  Justina and I went up to her and she seemed interested in what we had to say.  We said thank you for your time and gave her a pencil and bubbles to keep.

            This whole experience really made a positive impact on me because as students came over to the booth I was ready to talk to them about the community of RIC and if they were interested in hearing about the program I would talk to them about it.  All in all I feel as if it was a really successful event for Youth Development and having a background with our elevator speeched really helped too!

Links: Admissions Open House, Success=Elevator Pitch, Youth Development Article by The Anchor at Rhode Island College

Admissions Open House courtesy of Rhode Island College