Emma's YDEV Blog!

For this ideology quiz i scored a 9 for critical youth development. Before looking up what it meant I thought that it meant that it was bad. Critical youth development focuses on how youth engage with and impact their communities and cultures. Being a critical youth development worker focuses on helping teens contribute to the world and speaking up for what they believe in. Youth development workers are there to engage in healthy/unhealthy relationships. I believe that youth should be able to speak up and be in control of their own life and personal belief. It is important to hear them and support them. I feel like scoring critical youth development was a positive thing for me. I like to hear what young people have to say, finding their voice  and what they are passionate about. I do feel like this can help me in my future youth development career. It can be beneficial to help me lead the youth and support them. It is important to become a mentor to young people and be the person...

I was in the tenth grade when I started slacking off in school and putting my homework on the back-burner. My parents started arguing more, no way to concentrate and always worrying about what would happen next. I would attend school just as an escape from my home life. I was now failing two classed and my parents were called in to have a meeting with the school principal on some ways to help me pass. It was because of that meeting that I met my student support teacher, Mrs. Barlow. I remember walking into her small room for the first time and her greeting me with a huge smile and saying, “Whatever happens in this room, stays in this room.” It was warm and welcome, I finally felt a sense of relief. As the school year went on Mrs. Barlow and I formed an inseparable bond. She was my home away from home, my go-to, someone I could finally rely on. I opened up to her about my home life and how it made me feel and the reason behind slacking off. Student support offered me ex...

A time in my life where I have observed social injustice is really everyday when I am logging into facebook. Majority of my friends, co-workers, former teachers, and family post and comment on political ads, statuses and images. Promoting equal rights, fair trade, fighting climate change, women's rights, etc. All of those things are great to share and promote change, but it also comes with negative comments, and people's harsh opinions. I have learned over time that you can not change someone else's views, or make them believe what you are saying. I have seen fights on facebook about who should win, calling people names, bashing someones status, and so on. We want change in this world but bringing hate to the table will not get us there. We need to educate ourselves and when commenting on something make sure it makes sense and try not to hurt that person's feeling or shove your opinion down their throat. Usually my natural reaction when I see a hate status, or something...

This image shows me with my third grade reading group for my internship. I am engaging with the students while they listen carefully to me reading to them. It is positivity in my life and makes my internship that much better.

There are many ways in both of these articles that show how the teachers care about their students. The article by Sarah Nieto talks about how her greatest challenge is helping students and students of color understand racism and what it means to treat others with respect. She is caring towards her students to give them a safe environment that is filled with diversity and equality. Nieto states that," We have plenty of friendly teachers but nice isn't enough." She explains that we need teachers who respect their students culture and will do anything to communicate with them and their parents and incorporate their culture in the classroom. We want to make the students feel like their language is being heard and that their voice matters in this world. Being treated equal is important. After reading this article it reminded me of my internship in many ways. On my first day I met my teacher and she was speaking in English and Spanish. She began to tell me that half of her c...

Last week I was invited to attend a conference about student learning research at the Providence Biltmore. This was my first conference, I was excited to learn more about research and how the process works. I was shocked to see how many people attended and who traveled from just for this conference. In the beginning Eric went over the itinerary for the day and what would be expected of us and what we would learn throughout the day at the workshops. I attended The Met workshop where we met the principal and four students. Throughout the presentation the students did most of the talking while the principal sat back and listened. I enjoyed that since we got to hear from the youth and how The Met has such a positive impact on their life. The Met offers internships that help the students with their future careers and goals for their life. This is a perfect example of how youth development works. We are allowing the students to talk about what they like and experience life rather then doing ...

On October 4th, I had the opportunity to go see Judy Shepard speak. I had heard about Matthew Shepherd's death and the hate crime that had happened. Hearing his mom speak about his death and his coming out story gave me the chills. How come we are still having to have these discussions? Why is this world still full of hate? I sat there feeling like change needs to be made and we need to love and accept one another for who they are. I can relate to this event to Youth Development because we are looking for change, we are advocates for people around us, and if we want change we need to vote. Judy Shepard encouraged us to vote and educate ourselves if we want change. Two Decades Later   Matthew Shepard's Foundation