Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead

This was a fantastic speech! Frank Meeink spoke about his descent into the Aryan brotherhood. I always wondered how someone came to have so much hate for people of other races and ethnicity's. He was in a big way a victim of circumstance. He was introduced to the neo-nazi way of life so early in his life that he simply believed what he was told by his peers. He became so well known and powerful within the brotherhood simply because of his intelligence, and it's that same intelligence and later life experiences that led him to leave the brotherhood. Through his life, he met so many great people of different cultures that he couldn't hate them for the color of there skin anymore. He overcame hate and addiction making you believe anything is possible. His story is a great one! I can't wait to read his book!

Resources

Last week's class covered a very relevant topic for us as peer mentors. It was all about situations we could face with our students next fall and resources on campus that could help us help them. I can see quite a few of the situations we discussed coming up next fall. For a few of the situations we ourselves could offer advice, but for the ones that we can't offer much insight into, there are resources and places on campus that can help. Its nice to have all that at your finger tips so to be as helpful to the students as possible.

Team Work

This week was all about team work. Working well in a team environment is going to be huge in our success as peer mentors next semester. Everyone brings something different to the table as a team member; this s what makes group work so powerful. Two heads are better than one as they say. Which brings me to the two followup questions. What do I do well in groups and what can I work on? I feel I bring a good work ethic and good leadership skills to most groups I work in. I find myself falling into the leadership role quite often and I am always willing to go above and beyond in my contributions to the group whenever needed. One thing I could work on is making sure I involve everyone in the group. Sometimes I notice that I dominate conversations when brainstorming for ideas in a team. This could cause some good ideas to be overlooked or even not brought up at all.

LPS's and The Retreat

Last week's class was spent talking about lesson planning structures. I think this topic needed to be touched on. I knew a little about what we were trying to accomplish with the lesson planning structures, but found myself a little lost once I started making my own. After a while I started to get the hang of it, but it's nice to have some set guidelines to help get the job done.

Yesterday was our big retreat. We started out with a pretty fun little scavenger hunt around Ames. I've never heard of anyone doing a scavenger hunt by getting hints via text message. I felt like I was on a game show challenge. After that we went to Perfect Games for even more fun. We bowled and played some arcade games, but I must say the highlight was laser tag. It was great just hanging out and getting to know the other peer mentors a little better! Heath and Allie said the point of the retreat was just having fun with each other, and I think that was accomplished.

Professionalism

The big discussion this week was about keeping a professional relationship with our students. We spoke about some situations that we could find ourselves in, and discussed appropriate ways to react to these situations. I think this discussion needed to happen sometime before we start interacting with our students. I can see every one of the situations we talked about happening sometime during next semester, and we should have some set appropriate ways to handle ourselves in order to keep our professional reputation intact. The class seemed to already have a pretty good idea of the way they should handle these situations, but it was still good to get it on the table and out in the open.

MetaWhat?

First off I want to say Anthony and Kelly did a great job with the discussion starter. The class really started feeding off each other during the talk about being a good facilitator.

This week we talked about developing metacognition. I was one who had never really heard of the term, or just don't remember if I did. From the short discussion we had about it and the hand out we completed in class, it seems like a useful tool to develop. Thinking about your thinking. It sounds pretty vague at first. But if you really get to understand how you think about and react to certain situations, you could be in complete control of yourself at all times. Fully developing good metacognition skills could result in a more organized, rational, and controlled self. These all seem like good things to me.

Communication

In class this week, we discussed the importance of communication skills. I believe this is one the most important skills for a peer mentor to possess. It is the cornerstone of learning in general. It is evident that we all have valuable experience and advice that we can share with the incoming freshman, but if we can't effectively communicate those things, we're not going to help anyone.

I also enjoyed the Vin-diagram activity we did in class. It's interesting to look at all the different ways of teaching and decide when to use which to be the most effective educator.

Awareness

This week we completed a little awareness assessment. I wasn't surprised by most of the categories. One that did take me aback was physical awareness. I have always considered myself to be in pretty good shape. I run almost everyday and lift three to four times a week. I realized fast from the questions that were asked in this category that its not just about working out. Other areas of my life are most likely affecting my physical health. The lifestyle I live is evidently not the best for me. I would like to work on taking better care of myself.

Values

Last week we talked about self-concept and getting to know yourself. A big part of this is knowing and understanding your values. What do you really value in life, and of those values which ones are the most important to you. An interesting questions was asked during the discussion. "Where do your values come from?" This seemed like an insignificant question to me at first. I soon realized that it is important to understand how you came to value the things that are important in your life. You need to know that many events take place in your life that influence your set of values. Once you know this, you know that most people aren't going to value the same things you do. They haven't lived the same life. I believe this could be a big step in acceptance of different points of view.

Reflection

Last week I conducted my first class starter and class discussion starter with the help of Hannah. I guess it went alright for our first time. I found that the hardest part was actually getting the class to engage in a real discussion about the the topics at hand. They stated their thoughts on the topic as small groups, but there was really no interaction amongst the mentors as a whole. I realized that it was up to Hannah and I to raise questions and theories that pushed them into meaningful discussion about the material. I feel this could be a problem next semester when I'm trying to get the incoming freshman to engage in a class discussion. This could very well be an aspect of teaching that I'll need to improve upon.

Personality Types

At the retreat today, we found out what our MBTI personality types are. I have taken this survey somewhere around forty-five times so I was not surprised by my type. I am an ESTP (Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving). I believe these tests are moderately accurate at giving someone a vague glimpse into what a person's personality is like. People just need to realize that these are just letters and they can't even come close to defining something as a complex as a person's personality. Don't get me wrong, it's a great starting point. You get to know where some of your tendencies and actions stem from, and it reveals some strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes they are spot on and sometimes they're without. As for me, my personality type is pretty indicative of how I really am; due to the fact that I'm not that complicated of a guy. I like these surveys because they reinforce some of my strengths and let me know what I can work on. I am good at getting the job done, but I can be a little blunt and insensative with people at times. Knowing the personality types of everyone in the class is also helpful. It reminds me that not everyone thinks and operates like I do, and I need to be aware of this when working with someone of a different personality type so we can work as efficiently as possible.