STOMP 2-11-10

Hey thanks Saron for that last blog post. I'm glad to hear that the students were interesting in learning about the prison industrial complex. Thanks for bringing in that article!

The students were good on Thursday. They did their homework than we read an article about a black star athlete who is also brilliant and a Rhodes scholar. They all took turns reading it and stayed engaged. Before that though we did a little activity in honor of Valentine's day and basically the point of it was to tell each other what we liked about each other to keep their community strong and loving =)

I think showing Letters to the President is a great idea. We will definitely have to do that.

One of the students suggested showing The Great Debators which is actually a good movie and I think we can teach them a lot from of it. I want to show that we take their input seriously and I would like to show it to them. She learned a lot about the student's are miseducated and saw that reflected in this film. I think we can have them lead the discussion and have them think critically.

We can talk more about that as a staff. There won't be a staff meeting tomorrow because there's a holiday, but look out for e-mails!!

Thanks STOMPers!!!!!

STOMP 2-4-10

STOMP was a bit challenging on Thursday but of course always rewarding. There seemed to be a lot going on with some of the students... like one of the guys was having "girl problems" and Russell and Joie had to have talks with him. They were kind of loud during the Jeopardy activity but at least some of them really enjoyed it and learned something from it.

I got to talk with my mentees Tony and Briauna. Both of them are great, I am so thankful for them!

The only reminders I have are to give them the blue weekly report sheets and have them fill those out and return them to you weekly.

Any mentors have anything else to add??

STOMP (Thursday 1-28-10)

Hey STOMP Staffers!

Today was a good day. I was really surprised that we had a good turnout even though they got out at school hours earlier because it was finals week AND that they don't even have school tomorrow! It shows that they really do enjoy coming to STOMP. Good JOB MENTORS!! We are doing something right !!! =) I really appreciate everyone's work. I was just thinking today how I would feel so drained after every STOMP day because only a few of us were able to go. But I'm glad we stuck with it (shout outs to Ashley, Russell, Nas, Ricardo!) because STOMP is really improving! Still room for improvement of course...but progress has definitely been made.

Anyway...about today...I had a good conversation with my mentee Tony about school and life in general. Today was really chill because they just finished finals so we all take it easy.

Shout out to Evelyn who started playing games with them to keep them engaged!! Go head girl! I really appreciated that. Thanks for Whitney and Jess for getting the snacks! And thanks again to Whitney for driving and Kameko too!! Russell and Avelino...you two are so great! Thanks for being positive male role models. And Mags...I can so tell that your mentee loves you =) And Kiara, way to hold it down, I noticed that you kept your mentees busy the whole time.

Everyone is great. Yay for STOMP!!

peace,
moo