Past peer mentor panel, DST, and Retreat!

Being a part of the past peer mentor panel in class on Thursday was a very interesting experience to me.  I had a lot of fun answering the questions do not get me wrong, but sometimes it was not easy to think of a good example of problems I had with my group last year.  Even though it took a long time for my group to open up last year, they all got along really well (thank goodness).  In my opinion the hardest thing I had last year was learning to deal with personality differences between my co-leader and myself.  We did not go to all out war and duke it out, but we just had very different styles of teaching.  Something that I want to take away from the panel was Megan's system for make up assignments.  She had a very precise way of handling make ups that would be beneficial to the student.

Now for DST!  I do not think there are words to accurately describe how amazed I am at how it turned out.  We all know the credit for how it turned out goes to Josh and his awesome editing skills! Woot! Woot!

Finally, our final retreat of the year.  Bowling! I had a ton of fun bowling with everyone.  It was a great way to spend a stormy day and to do something fun together.  If anyone is willing to do it again randomly next fall I would be happy to do it!!

Final week of learning sessions

Last Thursday was our last class with learning sessions.  I have to give credit to Makayla and Nicole their chapter was a challenging one to teach.  I had it last year.  Most of the chapter is a bit of review of previous chapters so you have to find a balance of trying to teach new material and incorporating bits of the old material.  The "dating game" for peer mentors was a really fun activity and helped solidify the importance of peer mentors and used the peer mentors that are most commonly used by students on our campus. We need to be aware when other peer mentors on campus could be more helpful to our students than us.  I think it is also important to recognize some of our duties as a peer mentor for the Hixson program will overlap with other peer mentor positions on campus.

We were also able to finally figure out when our class will be held next year.  I think we have had the chance to understand the difficulty scheduling this class when we look at the difficulty we have had getting time to film our DST.  We have had the chance to learn from our mistakes with this DST project so that we can encourage our mentees to not make the same mistakes next fall.  I am excited to see how our DST turns out on Thursday.  It always amazes me how various clips can be incorporated together with some editing and form a pretty good short film.  

Resources: They can help us all

Shawn and Katie provided us with some very good situations to consider about making referrals in the Fall.  I decided to answer the questions for the second situation.  This seems to be a fairly moderate problem as far as urgency goes.  Since other people on their floor have recognized the tension and roommate tensions make for an inconducive environment for living/learning.

The first question I would ask Timothy is to expand on what he means by his roommate is "plain crazy."  I would also have him elaborate on what specifically upsets him about his roommate.  The next step would be to ask if he has sat down with his roommate to discuss the issues he just elaborated on.

One thing I would do is to explain to Timothy that roommate problems are very common and talk about different experiences people I know have had with roommate difficulties.  I would also mention that my friends that are CA's (Josh :] ) are experienced in these situations and are always willing to help figure out possible options.  Before referring Timothy to his CA I would suggest that he talks with his roommate by himself first, but if he feels like that is unreasonable, I would suggest seeing if their CA could mediate a conversation between the two of them.

I would then follow-up on the situation by asking Timothy in the following week if he had talked with his roommate and/or CA.

Making referrals is an important part of being a peer mentor.  It is a great feeling when you can help a student with the difficulties of adjusting to college, but at times you have to be mature and recognize when you are not equipped for the job.  Knowing the resources available allows us to help our students more than we could help them.

I found a few quotes that fit well when you need to refer a student to another resource.  These quotes are not only important for the student to know, but us as peer mentors when we are reluctant to recognize when we are not equipped.

"Don't be shy about asking for help.  It doesn't mean you're weak, it only means you're wise."

"Needing help doesn't make you weak, in fact quite the opposite.  It makes you strong, smart, resourceful, and realistic.  Being prideful is a weakness.  Asking for help when you know you're in over your head is STRENGTH. Don't ever forget that!"

Sometimes we need a little motivation

Hope everyone had a relaxing Spring break. I was in Ames for most of it working on campus, but I spent most of the time making duct tape flowers for our pens.  Not a terribly hard way to spend the day. 😃


Last week Kayla and Courtney did an excellent activity to demonstrate internal and external motivation.  For my part I had to use positive motivation to encourage my partner to create the best card possible without doing any of the work.  I did not find this difficult because I try to be a positive person in general and I enjoy trying to spread my positive outlook.  I feel like having a positive outlook coincides with internal motivation.  If you are in a bad mood you are less likely to want to complete goals you have.  I tend to be extremely internally motivated.  I do what I need to do for myself because I know it will help me achieve my goals.  Some students do not have this ability and rely more on external motivation.  They may need someone to push them to achieve their goals.  These are the type of students we can help the most as a peer mentor.

Allie also did a presentation on financial literacy.  Every time we go over financial literacy I learn a little something new.  It also reminds me of how fortunate I have been to receive this scholarship.  Without it I doubt I would have been at ISU and I know if I had been I would be in far more debt.  Knowing more about financial literacy not only helps ourselves, but allows us to pass on our knowledge to other students.

Educating girls could change the world (Diversity event)

I attended the documentary and discussion called Girl Rising last Thursday.  It was all about girls education around the world especially in countries where girls education is not encouraged, but did you know that educating girls yields the highest return on investment in developing countries.

The documentary told the stories of eight girls from various countries around the world and their journey/struggle to getting an education.  Between stories the documentary gave different statistics including 66 million girls are out of school across the world.  That is a huge number!

All of the girls had great stories.  The one that I found the most memorable was that of Suma from Nepal.  Suma was a Kumlari or a bonded laborer starting at just six years old.  Being a Kumlari allowed her to have food and housing that her parents could not provide.  Suma's first two masters made her work hard and did not treat her well.  At 11 years old she was bonded to her third master.  At his home there was a lodger who was a school teacher.  He convinced Suma's master to enroll her into a night class specialized for people like her.  They not only learned from the teacher's, but they told the teacher's about being a Kumlari and learned that it was a form of slavery.  It was also illegal.

The teachers were very courageous and would go to the homes of the masters and demand they let the girls go because it is illegal.  The teachers would return every day until the master agreed to let the girl go.  That is how Suma became free from being a Kumlari.  She, and other past Kumlari's, go around to homes where they know a Kumlari is being kept and sing/tell the masters that it is illegal and they know.

This was a very interesting documentary and I am very glad I went to watch it.

ISCORE round 2

ISCORE has proved to be an enjoyable and informative experience again this year.  Sadly, I was only able to go to two sessions in the morning.  I didn't even get the yummy sounding lunch.

The first session I attended was called Roses or Tires? Why It's Important to Pay Attention to Our Differences.  Despite a lot of technical problems this was a pretty interesting session.  It reminded me a lot about our discussions about diversity and being aware of our individual differences.  One question the posed to the group was would you feel, your sense of self would change if you were to change one or more of your personal characteristics.  One person felt that it wouldn't because sex, race, age, ethnicity, and other diversity characteristics only show part of who you are they do not dig deeper.  A woman disagreed saying that she had just had a child so to her being a woman is very salient right now and she did not think she would have felt the same if she were a male.  Either way you look at it this is an interesting question.

The second session I attended was Addressing a Colorblind Approach to Race in Schools: Professional Development as a Tool for Improved Student-teacher Interactions.  This session was interesting because it was about a program they are hoping to initiate at Ames Middle School.  One of the associative principles discussed how taking an approach that does not discuss race or that wants to only be politically correct does not benefit students.  He said that it can actually foster stereotypes regarding race.

I hope each of you were able to gain something from ISCORE.

So much in a short period of time

This last week has had a lot going on all at one time just with Hixson not to mention everything else.  I'm sure there are plenty of tests and projects due this week, but just remember we have just a few days left before spring break.

Let's start with class on Thursday.  This weeks learning session was led by Nicole and Matt and was all about leading groups effectively.  The role playing activity was great practice.  The jelly bean activity they explained sounded like it could have been fun and is something to remember for another time.

Sunday was another fun retreat!  We had four more awesome ice breakers giving us the opportunity to learn more about each other and to become a cohesive group.  It was nice to have a more serious ice breaker because we had the chance to learn things about each other that are deeper and more meaningful.

The other big thing about the retreat was making up for our snow day.  Sam and I presented our chapter on problem solving with individuals.  Hopefully everyone was able to jog their memory on SMART goals and connect them to positive goals and found some ways to think outside of the box.