West Leadership Weekly Round Up: August 27th - 31st

Greetings!

We had a fun and busy second week here at WLA as we spent time getting to know one another and continuing to build our YESS community.

On Monday and Tuesday, students reviewed the classroom expectations and were introduced to our general mentoring guidelines for the year. The purpose was to get them to start thinking about being mentors and envision themselves in the role so when we begin our mentor training they are ready to start off strong. Additionally, we spent time setting up our journals and playing a fun "Secret Identity" game. Each student has a YESS only journal that they will be using quite frequently throughout the year - everything from DO NOW's to discussing gratitude to just generally writing their thoughts and experiences. I'm very much looking forward to reading and providing feedback each week.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent reviewing our Academic Grade Tracker and if students were recently added to the class, we made sure they got theirs set up in the back of their notebooks. From there I had students choose one social justice issue they don't know much about and spend some time researching and preparing a short Google slide with a partner or small group. Since social justice is an ongoing theme in this course, it's important to gradually introduce the students to the issues and provide relevant examples throughout the school year. This way they can then find a topic that they are truly interested in and hopefully dive deep into helping solve it during our Stand Up project at the end of the year. I was pretty impressed with some of the topics selected already and the conversations that they lead to.

Friday we wrapped up the week by having some fun. Students completed their journal entries for the day and then we answered random fishbowl questions as well as played the "Remember Me?" blanket game. After that, we enjoyed the weather and got outside to Sunken Gardens for some sun!

It's been a good start at WLA thus far and I'm looking forward into diving into the curriculum next week! Stay tuned! -Ben