Colours I Did Not See

"Colours of Me" was a workshop I designed for my Getting to College class.  It really made me seriously consider working with youth as a career--it left that much of an impact on me.  Never had I anticipated being able to run a workshop for these amazing kids.  I was forever inspired by them.

May 2014

It was my first time facilitating a workshop that I created for underrepresented youth or kids who may have had different cultural backgrounds from me. I designed my workshop around the ideas of social and emotional learning (SEL). The workshop was mainly aimed at getting kids to think about their identities and stories as they saw it. 

They were to trace their bodies on a large sheet of paper and use whatever way of artistic expression to represent their answers to four questions: What keeps you grounded? What is close to your heart? What are you holding on to? What do you strive for? In this way, they would be exploring the key areas highlighted in SEL while reflecting metacognitively on their identities and experiences. It was my hope that it may have sparked some thought about the future, how they could use their talents and strengths to achieve their goals and perhaps consider college. 

The M&M icebreaker had everyone passing around different-coloured M&Ms that represented one of the four questions in the workshop. It ended up being very insightful and encouraging for the kids to indirectly think about their cultural wealth. 

 I recall one boy talking about wanting to be a professional cartoonist and thinking that he had a talent that could be further honed in high school. He also mentioned that he was deeply affected by bullies during middle school which reminded me of the sociocultural factors that influence the social-emotional needs of Latino immigrant adolescents (stuff I learnt in class). 

This was his piece

Another insightful sharing was from a Latino Hampshire College student who was one of the mentors at the workshop; he proudly stated that he was striving to graduate from college because he would be the first person in his family to do so. This was followed by an applause all around the room and I think it was a moment that said a lot of things. First, the importance of familial involvement and the importance to get mentors or role models this targeted group of kids can identify with.

There were also a lot of challenges I faced which is a good resource to encourage critical discussions on this. In retrospect, I realised that I could have been more culturally sensitive towards the group of students I was anticipating. Many of them were shy and some were less willing to participate in the activity. One of the reasons may be because they feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there, especially when they heard about an art exhibit at the end which required them to expose a bit about themselves. Furthermore, there were several language barriers—very slight ones but good things to notes for the future. I did feel rather helpless because I had the desire to help and connect with the students in whatever way I could but it was difficult when they started speaking with their friends in another language—it added to the already reserved nature of some kids. A mentor also commented that perhaps the vocabulary I used in the questions I presented could have used more simple vocabulary. It made sense, looking back, to always consider accommodating English Language Learners. Another broad challenge would be to keep the kids engaged throughout, especially the ones who were disinterested in the whole activity or isolating themselves from the group. I realised that reading about and criticising exclusion in the classroom is much easier than tackling it in real life when you have other students to handle and tasks to fulfill.

 Overall, I gained an immense amount of experience and learnt so much working with and listening to the stories of all the kids. I felt I grew in confidence in my creativity and in just having a little faith and courage to carry through the workshop plan as I have not led one by my self before. I felt my strengths were in planning ahead of time and designing activities that would keep the kids engaged to a certain extent. I found my weaknesses to be my inexperience working with underserved youth from mainly the Latino population and hence, the inability to anticipate certain barriers such as language, reservation in executing tasks, and some disinterest. I think this experience has really got me thinking about ways in which I could build better connections with the kids and attempt to understand and accommodate any differences or discomfort during the activity. I am definitely looking forward to learning and giving as much as I can in the coming years!

An unattractive picture of me smiling at a student's response.
My happiness outweighs my self-consciousness in putting this picture up.
Heh.