Archived January 2018

In Monday’s class, we did a recipe prompt. Students were first asked to if they’d ever baked (all have) and then they were asked to imagine themselves as that final product. “What are your ingredients?” we asked. Students chose various words that defined who they are, they added ozs. of kindness, teaspoons of attitude, cups of laughter and for a few, there was anger, lbs. and lbs. of anger. They wrote about themselves, their loved ones, mankind and the city or as they call it “the town.”

I’m still not permitted to share the young detainees’ work but I did want to share one of the student’s recent requests.

Thanks to a donation of blank cards from Cory Rowe, I’ve been keeping a stack in my bag for students to write their families.

One of our young students asked if she could have one to write herself. She said she expected to go home after court and wanted to send herself a reminder of everything she’s been through since her arrest.

“Just in case I forget what I learned,” she noted. She gave the card back to me with her address and asked to have it mailed to her house in a couple weeks.

Simply brilliant!

For now on, having a stack of cards on hand will be part of the program and when students are set to go home, I will give them this clever prompt.

How else might we help students achieve their goal of staying out?