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Zoe Girl
2-4-16, 8:12am
I get too many upworthy articles on FB it seems, but there are just enough that I like to get it still. One thing I have noticed is that in a variety of ways we seem to have young people doing kinda bigger things. From talks by the Kid President, to charity work by youth, to standing up and doing spoken word on issues that matter to them, I just see more youth having voices. (I also work in this field so maybe other people who are not in the youth development business don't see it). So that is cool, and often I find out that this kid philanthropist comes from a family already doing that type of work, or a kid who is an excellent speaker has a family that has been encouraging him all along. Part of this is also having a family/school support to get better at it. I imagine the first time the Kid President tried to take over Thanksgiving dinner with a speech it was not the greatest. But that is my point, what is encouraged and taught really shapes what we do.

For example, I was a strong minded, opinionated kid. I heard a year or so ago about a memory that a classmate had of me in 6th grades. I gave an impassioned speech about clubbing baby seals, and it sounds like I was a little graphic for 6th grade. A little cringe here, but realizing in one type of family I may be encouraged to give better speeches and connect with the audience more, maybe have more facts. Basically to become more skillful at something. Instead I sat at the kids table at Thanksgiving into my 20's, I think I was just annoying in a family that valued keeping the silence and the peace more than anything. A kid who wants to save the world in a family that already does that type of work may be guided to choose an area they could work with, helped to break down the tasks and build support among friends and adults. Another family may simply have no clue what they are working on or how to support that kid.

I woke up really early, sounds like a sign of the times (perimenopause) and had deep thoughts. I was thinking about some things I don't do as well as I would like and how I may need to work with not being trained/supported over the years. Not a criticism of my family - just realizing I may have to learn some new skills.

Chicken lady
2-4-16, 8:25am
It's like the parable of the two wolves within.

when we are small we are very dependent on those around us to choose what "gets fed" but as adults I think it's important for us to seek out and surround ourselves with people who help us feed our goals and better selves.

also, as a fellow educator, I think it's really important to look for strengths and virtues in kids and feed them. Even if they aren't your kids!

Zoe Girl
2-4-16, 8:44am
Our district is now on the 'personalized learning' kick, I think it can be a good thing (especially if it lasts more than a year, ). I did the study group so now I am one of the experts in the department. Plus our department as extended learning has a lot more freedom to do this compared to teachers who need to deal with testing. I started to realize how I have been doing this in training staff for years in many ways. I had a staff group at one school that was bilingual so I found training materials for them in Spanish as well as English. I used staff meeting times with each of my 4 schools to customize their training. Then I encouraged them to balance doing the things they were good at and trying some things that were challenging. So that meant trading the craft table for the gym game sometimes.

I am more hands on with staff right now but I love bringing that out in kids. I have 1, maybe 2 after school clubs that are being guided and chosen by kids right now. I give them the task of finding 10 kids, setting the standards for the club, and making decisions before we start. I like my supervisor but she wants to have a 'focus group' of kids, while I just do this more intuitively (then document on the 18 page monthly report).

Chicken lady
2-4-16, 9:41am
Wow, now I'm really grateful I don't have to write 18 page reports!

we're a really small program (couple hundred kids k-12) and have always focused on individualized instruction. I have classes with an age range of as much as 9-13 y.o.s, and I've got one kid who is on med trials that has my class right after lunch. Some says I have to find him, wake him up, and convince him to get off the floor and come to class. Some days he gets a sincere compliment if he keeps his eyes open, his feet off the table, and interacts with his materials. On the other end, I've got a 12 y.o. who should probably be a high school sophomore and is already doing work beyond the scope of the class - some days I spend my lunch hour with her on additional work, and I've still been known to look at her stuff and say "I think you could do better with that." I wrote her a reccomendation for another program and when she handed me the forms she said "when you fill this out, please remember that I'm 12."

Zoe Girl
2-4-16, 10:44am
Sounds like a great program. Honestly a lot of the report is areas we fill in every month and keep going. But there are 3 site goals, 2 team goals and one personal goals plus how we are working on the district values. There are data points as well of course, average daily attendance for different programming and school day attendance on the kids who are after school as well. I would love to say that this is part of working with grants but the majority of it is our department and district.