Event 4 *** College Leadership RI November

November CLRI

Exploring Public Sector and Personal Branding

Date: 11-2-2018

(No Picture because we were not allowed to take pictures of the people from the government who were in attendance)

My branding inspired by the workshop though!

Breakdown of The Day

This session was the craziest day ever. The first thing we did was have a breakfast meeting with state leaders. Some leaders we met with asked us for our view on new DOT projects, we met with the head of Capital TV, the CFO of DOT,  the head of the Public Admin Office. We then heard from from the head of the union for RI, and then we had a lesson on etiquette from JWU and a workshop of personal branding.

How Does This Relate to YDEV

One YDEV anchor that I really saw rise out of my this LRI session was purposeful play. Even in a room full of college students, it is important to plan some fun games or activities to get the deeper point across. We sat for a workshop learning about which fork to use first at the dinner table, and how to set up for a dinner party. It would of been better if they gave us silverware and let us try to set it up first, then have us do it correctly after. One thing that was really good though was the personal branding workshop. I think that relates to YDEV because we have to tell people what our degree is and we can do that through self branding!

Event 3 *** Sanctuary Conf

Sanctuary Conf

LGBTQ+ Church Leader Conversation

Date: 09/22/2018

What It Was

My church is in the heart of PVD and we have noticed the abuse that LGBTQ+ Christians go through. We as a church leadership decided to sit down with other church leaders, leaders in our church community, and people that are apart of the LGBTQ+ community in Providence. The goal was to bridge the gap that had been created by previous church trauma, and the part of the event that had this conversation was lead by Pastor Andrew Mook who is the pastor of Sanctuary Church, we also had leaders from Gordon Conwell Seminary. I was invited because I work with Mook on academic research of LGBTQ folks and my significant other and I have been through church trauma so we can relate more to people who have experienced trauma.

How Does This Relate to YDEV

This was by far one of the best social justice events that I have ever been apart of. I have never heard people who do not identify as LGBTQ+ stand up and speak to others about why they should not be oppressed. I also have never heard another religious figure stand in the gap for a community they do not identify with, and it was AWESOME. It was awesome to see all of the research P. Andrew had worked on for years, but to also have people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community affirm what we are doing, and start to heal from the trauma they have faced. It really taught me to stand up for injustices even if it does not affect me directly.

Event 2 *** College Leadership RI October Session

Breakdown of the Day

College Leadership RI session 2 took place at Save the Bay on JWU’s Harborside Campus. This session was all about exploring the non profit leadership employment sector in RI. We heard from leaders from Edesia, House of Hope, Leadership RI, Dorcas International, and Year One! We then had a “Jeffersonian Lunch” and talked about political polarization in our areas of expertise. We ended the day with a 2 hour workshop from Providence College on resumes and cover letters and how they relate to branding.

How it Stretched Me To Be A Better YDEV Leader

One thing that made me a better YDEV educator from this session was the Jeffersonian Lunch. At first, I could not believe that our table made of a group of diverse people could not realize why political polarization effects our way we see our government. For a while I sat there quiet, then I asked them how they would feel if someone said they were okay with deporting people. After a brief moment of thought, people started telling their story. We realized there was political polarization in our group, which is why we couldn’t “see it”. It was just a very long, intense conversation. I think I said 5 words, but contributed so much. I really embodied the YDEV anchor of leading with, I had to really take the lead because I could see the issue, but I wanted to be apart of the conversation as well. I felt like I was leading with everyone and just creating a safe space to share.

Event 1 *** College Leadership RI September

College Leadership RI Event

Gabrielle Elkas

How I Got Involved

In the 2018 graduating class of College Leadership Rhode Island there were no graduates of this state wide college leadership program that were studying any aspect of working with children. In many other years there were very few people who were aspiring to be leaders in the education sector. I decided that it was time to change that, if they say this program is where community leaders are risen out of, someone should be representing the future of our world… the children. I applied for the program in May, had an interview in July, and received noticed I would be accepted into the class at the end of September. Later after being accepted it was released that I was the only member of the program that had the strength of Intelluction in the cohort. I am there basically for my way I interpret data and make plans to change what is going on in our world.

During our first session we played games to  team build, analyzed our strengths, and talked to the founder of Waterfire about the community of PVD. We started at 8am and ended at 7pm including the after party. One of the games we played was like an escape room. They had us partnered in groups based on our results from the Gallup Strengthsfinder Assessment. We then all solved the puzzle that was suppose to take one hour in less than 20 minutes. We then talked in small groups and as a whole group about why this activity went so quick for us, and so long for groups full of executives. We decided as a group it was because not everyone was trying to be the leader of the group, and that we were all leaders of the problem, but we all knew our areas we were good at. This to me modeled the factor of leading with. We learned to lead with one another except overpowering one another and we succeeded quickly. One of our sessions was with the founder of Waterfire  we talked about how WaterFire became a model for other cities around the world and how its art takes on cultural meanings and makes spaces for young people to creatively present their culture to the city with their platform. We then participated in telling our stories to one another about why we were present there. Person after person got up and spoke about our stories and we laughed and cried together for hours. We finished the day with a lecture from 2 professors about Strength Finding and how to use people’s strengths to build a working team.  

Care

I really identified with Michelle in this article, to the point tears started to flow into my eyes. When I was in my practicum room for SPED 300 and FNED 346 I would bring snack everyday for my kiddos. I noticed that I would have kids so hungry even after they had breakfast that they would be very hangry. We would have time during centers where they could munch on some pretzels while working on their work and automatically the classroom staff saw a decrease of behaviors and even an increase in focus. Sometimes kids are not misbehaving because they want to make your day worse, but it is because they have a need that is not met.

Personally at my internship I have control over the culture I create in my program. For example, I was working in an urban environment and had a child specifically come very cranky each week. He would cry and scream when it was time to leave though. It ended up that they were living in their car and he did not want to go back to the car after class was finished. I was able to work with the family and connect them to a local shelter where they were able to stay for a bit while the mom finished up job training. They now have their own apartment. I am extremely blessed to be able to have freedom in caring for my students and their families, and I have support from my boss in whatever I do.

Adultism

We know that an important first step in erasing adultism is recognizing adultist tendencies in ourselves and others. Take a few moments now to think of a time when you were a youth at the same age as the youth you currently serve. Can you remember a time when adults took away your ability to make choices? What did that feel like for you/ how did that impact you? How did you respond?

I remember once I was in an after school program when I was in forth grade and we were given a choice to either watch a movie first, or have snack first. We all picked snack first and the program director started screaming at us saying we were being inconsiderate and making more work for her. It was like even though we were asked to make a choice, we choses "wrong". After that, when we were asked to make choices no one really wanted to because we were afraid to make the wrong choice. I think, from looking at it now, it showed how one person for 40 kids was not the best way to run a program. Understaffing, and underfunding creates stress and chaos. Even though the director wanted to most likely give us a choice, she probably was burnt out, and tired from years and years of running this program by herself, but it changed a safe space to make choices into a place where people were afraid to make choices. Personally, I was not effected by the situation because the director was my babysitter and I was helping her oldest daughter with a project, but if I would not have been doing that I would of been afraid of her.

Ideology Horoscope

In my YDEV horoscope I really do not identify with the Risk, Resiliency and Prevention part of YDEV.

I scored 16 points on that part of the quiz and I had both 9 points in positive YDEV and critical YDEV.

I feel like that aligns with my views on YDEV more. As a teen I really truly hated when people would say

"do not get pregnant" or "do not do drugs" over and over again at us. Not all teens are enticed to do drugs,

or to have sex and we need to realize that while working with youth. Youth have something amazing to offer

to society and we need to work with them to help change the world. The future is theirs and I rather help them, than

critique their every step. I also love educating people and leading with them. One thing I look forward to as

being a future teacher is being wrong and being corrected by my students. To me, their is no better way to foster a

community that supports learning than to make mistakes, or be mistaken and be corrected.

I think that it is interesting I have two types of YDEV ideologies that are tied together, I truly wonder who else has

similar results?