YESS at West Leadership Academy

Good Morning YESS Community, Happy Snowy Monday! The classroom here at West today literally had 17 students show up as the storm that came through this morning presented some difficulties to some of our staff and our students. I am glad to report that the ones who did show up were in great spirits, even as the world outside was Frosty's igloo.  For the most part, last week seemed to fly by immensely fast, seeing as how we had Monday off in remembrance of MLK Day. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we spent the better part of the day finishing up the student's presentations. The 3 biggest takeaway from this assignment were: 1. Resilience = Growth -- Our students here at WLA have shown to the rest of their classmates some of the challenges that they have faced and overcame. I had many students who, regardless of how nervous or shy or even afraid of presenting, still faced the challenge. Our students supported one another as they were presenting and encouraged one another i...

Good Morning YESS Community, As previously mentioned in last week's blog post, the students here at West Leadership Academy dedicated the majority of the classes to polishing their powerpoints to present to the class. The presentation has 4 main components that needed to be covered: 1. Family -- Talk about the family history, siblings, home life. 2. Interests -- What our students enjoy doing in their free time, favorite music, food, video games etc. 3. Career & Educational Goals -- Students needed to talk about their aspirations (if they had any) and if they did not (which is completely ok) start researching careers/schools that they might be interested in. 4. Values -- Students needed to talk about a value that they live by (Honesty, love, character, integrity) and not only that, why this value has impacted their lives. I set out to assign this project for two reasons: 1. Transparency -- Our students are encouraged to know one another, but it is very hard f...

West Leadership Academy -- January 7th through January 11th,  2019 The Grind Continues, Pt. I Good Morning YESS Community,      My name is Carlos Villagrana-Juarez and I am the new YESS West Leadership Academy Instructor. I am beyond blessed to be serving this community this semester and I am looking forward towards finishing the year STRONG. This past week, students reported back to school from Christmas break. We are now operating in a new, bigger room. Check it out! I am a firm believer in TRUST and TRANSPARENCY in the classroom. The only way to develop these skills is by leading by example and being honest with the classes. That being said, I laid out my powerpoint presentation detailing my life and let students get a glimpse of my past. Now that they were able to see what an example of trust and transparency looks like, they have to do it themselves. The first assignment of the semester is for themselves to make their own presentations about t...