Blog #5

As a big musical theater fan and a fan of In the Heights specifically since I was in middle school, I was very excited to have received this assignment.  "Breathe" follows Nina as she comes home to Washington Heights after dropping out of school at Stanford University.  Nina is the only person in her neighborhood who had the privilege of going to such an esteemed school.  None of her peers were able to go to college and her parents had to work extra hard to afford it.  When Nina is overwhelmed by school and drops out, she feels as if she is letting down her community. The song "Breathe" shows Nina navigating her return home and deciding how to tell everyone why she is home.

While I have never been in the exact situation Nina is in, this song does resonate with me because I have been in a position where I needed to tell my family or friends something difficult and wasn't sure how to do so.  I think that "just breathe" is a good strategy when trying to get yourself through a difficult situation.

Connection: 

This is a breathing exercise that can be used to manage and reduce stress.  As stated in the song, stopping to take a breath can help clear your head when you're in a difficult situation.

Blog Post #4

 Youth Work

1 Quote:

"The character of a youth worker, their integrity and their willingness to act as a role model and critical friend are vital."

2 New Ideas:

-it is difficult to define the practice of youth work, as it is very ambiguous and can mean a multitude of different things to different people.  

-one does not necessarily have to be "young" or "cool" to be a good youth worker.  Sometimes the best youth workers are the ones who challenge behaviors, rather than condone them.

3 Vocabulary Words:

-professional youth work: enabling young people to develop holistically, working with them to facilitate their personal, social and educational development, to enable them to develop their voice, influence and develop their place in society and to reach their full potential 

-youth workers: educators who engage with young people in diverse settings, using different methods and activities to stimulate informal education and learning

-holistically: in a way that is characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicably only by reference to the whole 

Connection:

My connection is a meme alluding to the fact that youth workers are heroes. Youth workers, no matter what job they are doing, are making large impacts and greatly changing their community.  

Blog Post #3 - Values

 Values Worksheet

Value #1:  Kindness

Value #2: Humor

Value #1:

1. What are one or two behaviors that support your value?

    Checking in with my friends and family to see how they are doing, always saying thank you

2.  What are one or two slippery behaviors that are outside your value?

    Gossiping

3.  What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value?

    
    A friend’s child was in the hospital and I helped by bringing them food and babysitting their older              daughter

Value #2:

1. What are one or two behaviors that support your value?

    Cheering people up with jokes

2.  What are one or two slippery behaviors that are outside your value?

    Making jokes that might be insensitive to some people

3.  What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value?

    When I hang out with my best friend and we bond by making jokes and laughing about shared             experiences

1. Who is someone who knows your values and supports your efforts to live into them?

    My Mom

2. What does support from this person look like? 

    Checking in with me and telling me she's proud of me

3. What can you do as an act of self-compassion to support yourself in the hard work of living into  your values?

    I can go easy on myself during times when I am not following my values and tell myself that it’s okay to     stray from them sometimes

4. What are the early warning indicators or signs that you’re living outside your values?     

    If I do something and get the feeling that it wasn’t nice or I feel bad about what I did, I know that I’m         straying from my values and need to get back on track

5. What does it feel like when you’re living into your values?

    It feels very meaningful and like I’m doing something good for the people around me

6. How can you check yourself?

    I can check myself by thinking back on my actions and considering how they might have made others         feel.  If I don’t think that what I said or did was productive then I know I need to get back into my                 values

Connection: https://www.tiktok.com/@tyler_deveraux/video/7210935980042276142?_r=1&_t=ZT-8zfWLVFqaGN 

In this TikTok video, a man is talking about values.  He is talking about how it may be difficult to figure out what your values are, but once you do it can help you thrive in life and work toward what is important to you.  This relates to the worksheet because it has to do with identifying values and doing work to understand what is important in our lives and how we can better understand ourselves.

Reading Reflection #2

 I found this article to be very compelling.  As a child, I participated in various OST activities.  I did softball, soccer, CCD church class every week, but the one I really stuck to was dance.  I did dance for ten years and I loved it, at first.  The last two years of dance was when I start to develop anxiety and had panic attacks often during/before performances at recitals and competitions.  As a result of this, the girls I danced with started to pick on me, which only made my anxiety worse, which made them pick on me more.  It was a vicious cycle.  My dance teacher was always very kind to me and showed me compassion when she could tell that I really needed it.  She would check in on me and gave me time to be alone when I was getting worked up or stressed out.  She was a very big supporter of mine, not only because she was my dance teacher, but because she cared for me and wanted me personally to succeed.

Out of School Time can be beneficial for youth in many ways.  They can learn from whatever activity they are doing,  make new friends, and learn from/form bonds with the adults working in their program.  It also gives them time to relax and have fun so they are not always stuck in school and have an outlet to get out their stress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWtFWQ1dPz4 

This TedTalk discusses the importance of OST activities.  The speaker touches on summer learning loss and how, over the summer, students tend to lose a lot of cognitive skills.  He also mentions how a lot of children in lower income areas don't have access to OST programs.  This ties into the article very well because both pieces feel strongly about students having access to activities outside of school hours.

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