Last Thursday we had a simulation of about school security. The scene was that the janitor came in to inform everyone that someone broke the car window of the principal of the school. The police was called and they were going to talk to everyone to find out who was the culprit (s). Dominique and I were informed before hand so that we could know what is going on and so that we could not make the scene go beyond what it was supposed to be. By that what I mean is that we could have taken the necessary steps to make sure that they students are not by themselves, getting interviewed by themselves with out an attorney and actions like that. The students have rights and we would have made sure they knew what their rights were; things I would have liked to have know in middle school. I have to say that I was really impressed with some of the students because some of them stepped up, like Victor. He called Jane and Dee Dee to inform them what is going on and he made sure that the students that were taken out and returned did not leave the room again. In that scene, the students returned to get their belongings and were heading out to face whatever consequences (what was really going on was that they were informed of what was going on and were told to make a scene. Victor put his body in front of the door to make sure that the students did not leave because they had to remain in the room because if they were going to get interrogated, they all were going to get interrogated together. It ended with Dominique telling the students to get on the phone with their parents to let them know of the situation and the individuals running the activity came in to inform the rest of what was going on. There were some students that were very upset and thought the whole thing was cruel and should not be ever done again. Victor on the other hand thought it was great but wished he could have been one of the students that was informed before. (In the picture, Victor is the student with the blue t-shirt and the afro. The other student is Leon.)
For the Fourth of July weekend, there was this huge festival here in New Orleans called the Essence Festival, in which was a concert. It was very chaotic because there was so many people and the traffic was horrible (not as bad as LA's but pretty bad none the less). For the Fourth of July was went to the French Quarter to see what was going on and to eat but ended up just walking around. Later on that day we went to Ed Blakely's home because he was having something going on. We went to his home first where we ate chopped up apples, nuts and had drinks. Just in case you may not know who Ed Blakely (I am probably misspelling his name) is, he is the rebuilding Zar (<--the correct spelling is not coming to mind) of New Orleans. He taught at UC Berkeley, ran for Mayor of Oakland, teaches in Sydney Australia. This guy is supposed to be big news. When we got there, he just kept talking about himself and how he was wanted by the CIA in his youth. It was interesting because some of us were having conversations about what we are doing and he just looked at us, indicating that we should be listening to him. Many of my peers did not like him and those who did not like him before just despised him. Afterwards we went to this place that was a few blocks away, that was this Mexican festival. He bought everyone a drink and we all got food and ate. The food was really good except for the Tamale, which was very wet and not that taste. After that most of us got up and to go dance. That was really fun because we were just dancing and having fun. We were not impressing anyone, it was just one of those moments that are priceless. Aftere the whole thing we all went our separate ways. Some went back to the hostel while the rest of us hung out at another intern's home. The reason why we did not go with the others was because they were crowding into a car and not everyone was going to fit so we decided to just walk. Also, we asked if they could drop off some the others and maybe come back for us but they refused, which was fine by us. Those of us who did not go back, went to another interns' home to hang out. We waited for her friend to arrive so that we could to to Frenchman street to go do more dancing. When he arrived, we went to this one place, which was dead, then another place, which nothing really was happening. By the time we found something we were tired and decided to call it a night.
Yesterday some of the students went with Jane and me to interview with one individual that works for the Recover School District. This individual works to rebuild schools and build new schools. We followed up with the proposed green bathroom idea and see if they were going to use it. Surprisingly they were going to use parts of it and those parts that were not used were only because they had a better material. The main reason why we were there was because we wanted to present them with our ideas about school cafeterias. We proposed to have decomposition area for any material that can be turned to soil so that we can reuse that for gardens in schools, an area where students can wash their hands, and some other things. Unfortunately the individuals had to leave and we ended up getting a presentation from another individuals. He presented a proposed model that I have to say looked like an incredible school, something I wish I could have attended. The design of the school was very attractive and was just a good design. He showed us some other designed that were not as detailed as the other one. I have to say that it was a great learning experience and was glad I was able to be there.
Finally, there have been some issues with some of the rethinkers. Two females in particular. One of the just has so much attitude, while the other one just follows her around. Yesterday during a presentation, they were being disrespectful. They were texting in class, not really participating, kept laughing for now apparent reason and just not being helpful. What is sad is that they are both returners who should know better and should set the example for the younger students. I had to ask them plenty of times to put their phones away and to pay attention. It was frustrating because I expect more of them and because I had to constantly repeat myself. I had to sit between them, which did not help. Today we had an activity that was geared to remind everyone of the Rethink values but that did not faze these two students. They still were texting, not paying attention and took it a step further, they started to bully another student who does not mess with anyone. This student just minds her own business. That is just upsetting because we are trying to create a positive environment and these two are are messing that up. I really do not know what is going one with the one with attitude. I am sure something is going on that is causing her to behave like this because I have been informed that she acts like this when she is copping with something. I guess for me, this is a great way to get experience working with students that are tough. I will do what I can to make sure she is getting the most out of this experience, however, this student has to want to learn. Ultimately it is up to the student, we can only do so much. Until next time.

Ebelio

Cynthia

Hello everyone,
Today a group called JJPL, which I believe stands for Juvenile Justice Protection League, I could be wrong, came in and we had a discussion about the juvenile system. Students are being sent to detention centers for minor crimes and are not allowed to go back to school while they are on trial. The guards harass them, the food is unsanitary, the building is not safe and falling apart and the students are there for months at a time, while they wait for their trial. If they have past offenses, then they are sent to something worst, if not, then they have been kept from learning anything for those months that they have been in this detention center. We broke into groups and discussed what can be changed so that the detention center can be used as something that is positive instead of negative. Some of the ideas that we came up with were having more counselors for the students, making a mentor mentee type program with college students, have better food, have a better building, get teachers to come in and teach these students so that they can continue on and at the same time prepare them for the LEAP test, so that they will not be held back and various other things. Afterwards we presented and Dominique discovered that the students in her group could not read well, which is pretty tough when you are coming into a situation where you have bright students that have a lot of potential but are struggling. It is a pretty complex situation because these students should be reading well. Afterwards we did a little skit, where we had volunteers come up to the front. There they were assigned a role of the person on trial, the defendant, the Judge, the prosecutor, the business owner/zero tolerance principal. It was interesting because when the Judge gave her verdict some of the rethinkers disagreed with it because they believe the person should have gone to jail or the sentence was unrealistic and would never happen. I find it interesting because sending students to jail is exactly what we are trying to shy away from. Also the unrealistic comment is interesting because that is exactly what we want. The verdict by the way was to have the person work at the store and help restore it, the person would get counseling and the judge offered the student a job with her.
Today I was watching the movie Meet the Browns, which recently came out on DVD. There is one scene in the movie in which the son of the main character got shot and the main character was having dinner when her friend rushes in to tell her that her son is in the hospital and that he was shot. That just brought back memories of my cousin Cynthia. I just pictured her getting shot and being in the hospital. I just imagined her parents, aunts and uncles, my family getting the news that she was shot and just imagined how their hearts must have dropped to their stomachs. I also remember getting the news that she was killed and just being in disbelief. I remembered my mom's voice very upset and me asking her what was wrong. She did not want to tell me because she did not want me to worry. It is funny, now that I think about it that I am usually the last to find out about things. If I was not home last summer, I probably would have been the last to find out that my mom was hospitalized because she had cysts. I just remembered her crying as she told me the news and then talking to my brother Jose because my mom could not talk and my brother crying for at least 2 minutes because he was horrified. My mom tells me that they are going to do a service for her this sunday and that it has been a little bit past a month since her death. My family is talking to my relatives whom I have hated for so many years. Right now I am indifferent about them because me hating them was only hurting me. My family is talking to them and one of them apparently, while he was drunk became very over protective of my sister Mirna saying things like "I do not want her to have a boyfriend because I want her to get a career first" and all of these other things. Also, another one told my mom that he is very proud of me for graduating for College and that he always knew that I was a good person. He also stated that he knew that I always loved school and that I was always hard working. My mom just told me that when she heard this, she was just thinking "if you are proud of him, can you imagine how I feel?" Also, another relative has been having dreams of Cynthia. In her dreams Cynthia is telling her that she is going to take her (this relative) daughter and her telling her that she better leave her daughter alone and that she is dead. I have no idea what this means but it just has her very shaken up. Until next time.

Ebelio

Field Trips and a student

Hello,
On thursday we went on a field trip to the Hire Kirshina temple. It was something that was very different and I have never been exposed to such a thing. They are a group that believes in being vegetarians. In addition they believe in feeding who ever would like to share a meal with them. However, some of the students had some problems with the whole thing because they felt that these individuals were trying to convert them to what they believed, which was not the case. I believe that they were just offering us different perspectives on food. For lunch they offered us vegetarian pizza, corn, soup, salad and lemonade.
On friday two drama instructors came in and we worked on acting. We mostly did improvising and acting out scenarios. For example I was asked to be a police office. I did an impersonation of a police officer and someone was added to the scene. Another person was asked to mold the scene and some how I was aiming my pretend gun at the other person while he was on the ground with his hands up. Then they added another person, who was made to play an old woman. We had to stay in a certain position for a while. While we were in those positions, the rethinkers were discussing how the scene should turn out. I have to say, that was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. After that we went to Cafe Reconcile, where some of the rethinkers were to conduct an interview with the manager. We all ate and then they conducted the interview. We ate chicken, a salad, and rice and beans. Later we found out that the entire meal cost about $1.38 to make which gave the rethinkers ideas of who to take cost into account when the propose their solution to the issue of food at the end of July. Everyone had a good time, especially the elder girl rethinkers because they got the phone numbers of the waiters, who are about their age. The other college intern, Dominique, got a strawberry shortcake, which I think she was really flattered by but at the same time, she was caught off guard.
Yesterday we went to grand Island and on the way there we met the wife of a shrimper. This woman is an activist who became an activist three years ago. She has been to about 15 different countries in the past 2 years. She explained how shrimping used to be a very profitable business. When she grow up, sons would work with their fathers over the summer on his boat. Well at the end of the summer these young men would earn about $50,000, which is a really good summer job. However, over the past few years, the market has been killed due to the rise in gasoline and foreign markets. She told us a story of a person who knows who took out a crew of men. They caught about $123,000 worth of shrimp but because of these two things mentioned, they received a paycheck of about $700. That paycheck was to be used to pay the entire crew and the man just started crying because one cannot pay entire crew with that. She also told us the story of the Filipino population. They used to live in this community in Grand Island back in the late 1800s. They used to do all of these interesting things such as get shrimp, do a grape squashing like dance to take the skin off the shrimp. There also used to be a very famous hotel and railroad. They used all of the wood available to build their home and that was the cause for one of the worst hurricane disaster ever. What happened to them is far worst than what happen in Katrina because what happened whipped out an entire population. There used to be a population of about 3,000 living there and 2,000 of that population died. What happened was that a hurricane came in with in a matter of hour everything was destroyed. ninety percent of the children and women died. They found the corpse of women that were hanging by their hair on a tree. After all of this we went to Grand Island, which is for the most part a beach community. They have one supermarket, a shrimping business, a few restaurants and a lot of beach houses. It is ridiculous how much it cost to rent those home for a day. We drove through the community, ate at a local diner and then talked to a shrimper. He explained to us the type of environment a shrimp needs so that It can be good to eat and that environment is one that is constantly moving. This is needed so that they shrimp can shed it school, get rid of waste and these things allow for it to be healthy. He told us that it is tough because foreign countries are farming shrimp in local lakes and ponds. This environment is not good at all because the shrimp are getting sick, are not allowed to shed their skin properly and he claimed that some of that shrimp have been cloned. In order to help it shed its skin and not get sick, anti-biotic and chemicals are being used on the shrimp and we are eating them. This not only is bad for us but it is also destroying the ecosystem where the shrimp is being farmed. He said that it will probably take about 100 years for that ecosystem to be at the state it was before the farming occurred. In addition, it is forcing everyone in the community to work on that shrimp farm. What is also interesting is that Canada, Australia and most other countries are not allowing these farmed shrimp into their markets and only the US is allowing its citizens to eat these shrimp. This shrimper tries to sell the shrimp he catches to states like New York and California. It was a very interesting trip and the point of it was to see what is going on in the local businesses and try and support them because it would be a win win situation for all.
Finally, I found out why one of the students who we had from the vietnamese community stopped coming. This student was loved by all, the interns, staff, and the rethinkers. I had high hopes for her because she is a very shy person but in the short time that we had her, she started to blossom and became very social. If you saw her the first day, you would want to talk to her to help her get out of her shyness but by the third day, it is a completely different story. You could tell that she was enjoying her time with Rethink and she was really happy. It is strange that such a person can have people care about her in such a short time. That Thursday she did not come and the same thing on that friday. The next week, we received a letter saying that she would not be coming to Rethink do to family issues. We were all sadden by that news. We came up with possible reasons for this and thought that they family we just being mean. We did not see the true reasons and when we were told (the staff and interns), we were shocked because one does not think about such things. This student had been crying for a while because she really enjoyed her time and did not want to let of of Rethink. We asked Paul (i talked about him in a previous blog), to tell her that we missed her and he did so. We found out that she started to cry even more because she was so touched. In addition, two rethinkers who live near her have been in contact with her. We were also told that she always looks out her window in the morning and is saddened to see the two rethinkers from her community leave in the mornings because she wants to who with them. This situation is very complex one because there is not much that we can do but try and write to her and let her know that she is a part of the Rethink family and that we miss her and wish she was with us. Maybe we can try and include her in making the game since she has a wiki already and we can leave messages on her page. For me, I am especially fond of this student because I see myself when I see her. For most of my life I have always been a shy person who never really talked much. I was always intimidated by many things and would never do anything. I have grown from that and just seeing this student just blossom makes me very happy because it means a lot to me when shy people start coming out of their shell. Until next time.

Ebelio

Paul

Hello again,
This week has been a pretty busy week so far. On Monday we had a chef come into the class and cook a meal for the students. She made a vegetarian dish which was really good and this salad with this amazing salad dressing that was to die for. I am not a person that likes salad dressings because what I have had is not that great but her salad dressing was something that was just awesome. Yesterday I went with my supervisor to talk to this one person that is the point person at Samuel J. Green charter school. If you do not know about SJ Green, it is a school that is following Berkeley's lead and has an edible garden at its school. Also, it is trying to provide better, healthier food for the students and is doing something that is revolutionary for Louisiana. We talked to her to get an idea of what it takes to run a cafeteria and get ideas of what is rational. I was really tired and tried to stay with the conversation but could not because she was using all of these terms that I was not familiar with.
Today was a very non stop day for me. I got to the school, started making copies from the material that April (SJ Green person) gave us. Then I went to the class where the students were coming up with questions for a chef from this restaurant called Dante's Kitchen. I was coming in and out of the room. After the interview, I wrote down what they talked about and will have to type up what was discussed. Around 11:30's Chef Ann came in with already made vegetarian meal, which was really good. Afterwards I had to prepare the computers so that the students could work on the computers. We did that, I put the computers away, hurried to the room, we did the closing circle and i had to hurry to CC's community Coffee house where I downloaded a file that my supervisor sent me and went to meet my supervisor. Afterwards we went to New Orleans East to interview Paul. New Orleans East has a large Vietnamese community. We met up with Paul and I have to say he is a very likable person. Unfortunately he got in trouble his freshman year and has been getting in trouble with the security guards every since. He used to do drugs but has calmed down. He told us that when the flooding happened he was relocated to Houston where he loved it. He had a 3.7 gpa and was excelling but came back to New Orleans and his grades dropped. He had never got suspended until he went to the McMain, which is the school we did the mulching for. Before the flooding it had a 1/3 white population, 1/3 black population and a 1/3 asian population. It has a very horrible exterior and the school is falling apart but it WAS one of the best schools in New Orleans. Post flood, it has a 1/3 black population and 2/3 asian population. In addition, about 70% of the teachers were fired. Now it is not the same. Back to Paul he just told us some horrible stories of the school. He told us this one story about this one girl who had hoop earring that were more than 1/4 at school. The security guard told her to take them off and she said no. So the security guard (which is a woman) twisted her arm and told her to take them off and the student said no. So the security guard body slammed her on the ground and dropped her knee in her gut. So Paul tried to get the security guard off the student and in doing so the security guard used a taser on him. Another story he told us was this one about a friend of his that got in trouble with him. They called his parents and he told him that his parents could not speak English very well and the vice principal just ridiculed his parents and told him that if they could not speak English then they should go back to Vietnam. The last story that stuck was the one about him and his friend leaving campus and they were smoking cigarettes and were stopped right away. The security guard called the vice principal and he was headed to them. The security guard told them to go with him to the vice principals office and Paul told him that the vice principal was on his way. The security guard got upset and got him in a head lock asking him if he thought he was black or something and that he would show him what it means to be black. Paul told him to go for it because if he did, Paul would sue the school. The security guard got him by the neck and choke slammed him on to his car and his friend was punched in the back of the head. While Paul was on the hood of his car, he was getting punched in the stomach by the security guard. Afterwards he was handcuffed and dragged to the vice principals office. The vice principal called his mother and told her that she better be down at the school in ten minutes or else something would happen to sher son. She told him that it was impossible because she works about 30 minutes away and he just told her she better be there in 10 minutes and hung up the phone on her, which is very disrespectful. When she got there, Paul was handcuffed and she asked the vice principal very politely to take the handcuffs off but he refused. He told her that Paul was a threat and the handcuffs were necessary. She kept telling them to take them off and that he would not do anything while she was there. It took them 15 minutes for them take them off. Another incident that came to mind was that he was stopped for supposedly having drugs on him and there was 6th and 7th graders around. He was harassed by the security guards and taken to a bathroom, where they he was forced to strip naked, all to see if he had drugs on him. Another incident was when he was in class and he was on a list to he searched by the police for drugs. The brought police dogs that destroyed his backpack and destroyed his locker. It just seems that they are preparing students for a life in prison by treating them like they are nothing. In order to discipline them, extreme measures are being taken, which are unnecessary. The interview went well but some of the question's that I asked were not really that good. Some of them were pretty confusing and I found myself improvising a bit to make up for questions that were not well write or were not good. Anyways, I have to get to bed, I will be going on a field trip to a Hindu temple with the students. Until next time.

Ebelio

Sitting in a cafe

I am sitting here in Cafe Mojo, which is across from the guest house I am staying at. This past week was the first week of Rethink and I have to say I am very happy how it went. Like I have said, I believe we have a good bunch of students. I cannot wait to see what they will come up with. It is pretty exciting because it is rare for students to talk and come up with how they want their schools to look like and be taken seriously. I think that is amazing. On Thursday a spoken artist, who works at a high school that some of the high school interns attend, came in. It was interesting seeing this one student who said that he hated poetry just be in complete awe when the teacher recited his poetry. I have to say I was in awe as well because it was sooo good. He recited a poem about the disaster and a love poem. I hope that the rethinkers are able to utilize him and come up with something just as amazing if not better than the teacher. In addition to this, earlier in the day the rethinkers were getting a lesson in health and wrote what their favorite food was and then wrote about an experience in a cafeteria. The point of the activity was to try and draw a comparison of how it is when they eat their favorite meal and how it is to eat in a cafeteria. I believe they tried to get the rethinkers to think "Shouldn't your experience eating in a cafeteria be similar to that of eating your favorite meal at home?" Afterwards they ate peaches, which I cut for them, and dried banana chips, which were soooooo good.
Yesterday, individuals from Vayla, FFLIC (Friends and Family of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children), and another organization came to talk to the students about school security and the school to prison pipeline. The representative from FFLIC showed a short film about what the school to prison pipeline is. I wrote some notes and this is what I got. "they push out the students from school and into prison. "There is a loss of Freedom of the students of FFLIC. They fought to close Tallulah, which is a prison for juveniles. In New Orleans there is the Zero Tolerance policy which enforces the school to prison pipeline. The students are put in prison because something happened in school and students are discouraged from going to school. There are harsh discipline and more security in school and no councilors for the students. The security guards are harassing students, checking their bags and private parts. Some students do not want to bring their bags to school because they want to just get to their classes with out being harassed. There is the s s's of schools, Security, Suspension/expulsion, and Services".

The definition FFLIC gave for the school to prison pipeline is "The systematic and institutional approach to depriving poor people of color a right to an equitable and quality education; the deliberate approach to using poor people of color to fill the Prison Industrial Complex; the Continued intentional efforts to make poor people of color feel inferior to what is deemed the superior race, this is done by pushing kids out of school through unjustly suspensions and expulsions, high-stake testing, the lack of educational resources on a consistent basis, lowered expectations, zero-tolerance, and mentally preparing kids for prison by creating prison like environments in the school with the overuse of police and security guards policing students". I believe the school to prison pipeline is tracking students to a life of prison, which a member of one of the organizations disagreed with me. He told me that it is preparing students to a life of prison, which I do not disagree with. I just think that there was just a different understanding of the word tracking.

Afterwards we had a discussion of what can be done about school to prison pipeline. some of the ideas were to get rid of the zero tolerance policy, give second chances, in school suspension, replace security guards with councilors. Afterwards we got on a bus to go visit a O Perry Walker, which is supposed to be a school that is revolutionary in how it is handling school security. We went there to get ideas of what a school with a security systems looks like. The assistant principal talked to us but kept leaving because he kept getting called. When he would leave, the former student body president talk. They had a blood drive going on because one of their students was shoot 10 times and was in the hospital, so they had the blood drive to get blood for him. I have to say, they did sell to school image pretty well. So well that one of our rethinkers got an application to enroll there. That rethinker has been home-schooled all of her life and O Perry Walker was the first school she experienced. I hope for she can experience other schools so that she can get another perspective of how other schools are. Going back to O Perry Walker, they stated that they have build a family like community in their school, the principal is always on campus, they reward their students with DJ Fridays, good food, and all of this other stuff. However, they do have metal detectors, two security guards, 20 security cameras (and are going to get 20 more installed), the security guards are called security councilors, the teachers help discipline students, they have a behavior councilor who had the power to suspend students, they suspend students form coming to school late, they will be getting a card swiping device, and they check their students facebooks and myspace. When the assistance principal stated that they check their students facebook and myspace, he made the comment "I don't care" referring to him not caring if they invade their privacy. Personally, I do not think that this school is not that revolutionary because other schools are doing what they are doing, they are just presenting it in a very colorful way. With the myspace and facebook thing, I believe that is crossing a boarder because they are invading their students privacy. It maybe a good thing because they can read if there is any issues going on but at the same time, they can use anything the students have on their facebook or myspace against them. Then again, should students be putting up stuff that can be used against them on their facebook or myspace pages. Also, I believe that having a teacher as a facebook/ myspace friend can lead to problems, especially if the student is in their class. I am opposed to teachers checking myspace/facebook but this may be the only way there can be safety on campuses.
After the whole thing, we all went to my supervisor's home to have a meal and kind of celebrate the end of the first week. I have to say, the food was sooooo good. We had Vietnamese's food, which one of the high school interns and his mom brought. Also, my supervisor put on some really good music. I am a person who loves listening to music and I was exposed to some very good music. We listened to Cuban music and music from South Africa. I got to borrow some music, which I am uploading onto my laptop as I am typing this. I just think that music is such an incredible thing.
On Thursday I got the news that I might be an uncle, which is very strange and exciting thing to me. As you might imagine, I was really happy because that is just really awesome news. However, yesterday I got the news that there is complications. There is the possibility that my older sister's life might be in danger because there is the possibility that the egg remained in the tube. If that is case, then my older sister's life might be in danger. I hope that is not the case and something can be done to save both their lives. If nothing can be done, now, since I guess it has only been a month, then my sister has the choice of waiting a month to see what happens or have an abortion. It would be cool being an uncle but if it means losing my older sister, then I can wait until the time is better. Until next time.

Ebelio

Past three days

On Monday was the first day that we worked with the students. We have a good bunch of students in my opinion. There are some that are very energetic and talkative and others who are very shy. On Monday we just did a lot of team building exercises that were very fun and interactive. It was not until tuesday that i realized what I was deal with. It seems that for the most part, we have a good bunch of high school interns. For the most part we all get along and work well together. On tuesdays, some of the students that were pretty shy started to break out of their shell and socialized more. For me, I love seeing that because for the most part I see myself in them. I was very reserved, very very soft spoken and was shy. At times I am still these things but not as much as I used to be. I was very proud of those students who were shy and are beginning to break out of that. I hope by the end of the program these students break out of their shells completely. Besides the team building games, we also started working with the individuals from New York. We created out Wiki pages and uploaded pictures. It was pretty cool and I am excited to see with we come up with, in terms of the game we will be working on.
today we started to work on visioning what we wanted to do. We entered groups, talked about and issue we were assigned to. We were to draw our ideas of a 2020 school. After that we discussed these drawing and eventually we came up with skits about the issue. My group talked food and what type of food we would like to have at schools. After work, I went to this free concert at Lafayette square, which was solid. It was interesting because we met interns from other schools like Princeton, Smith, and Tuff. After the concert some of us went back to the guesthouse to drop off our stuff, and some how afterwards we ended up going to a penhouse which was behind the Lafayette square. I have to say, the food was sooooooooo good. The hostess cook everything. One of the interesting dishes was chopped pineapple with cheddar cheese. I have to say, that was my first time every being in a penthouse and I had a blast. We had a very good view of the entire city. Also, they had a self playing piano, which I have never seen in my life. That was really awesome. it is interesting because I never would have every believed that I would ever be in a penhouse because I do not come from that walk of life. Somehow, thanks to Yaou, I was able to visit a penhouse. The hostess was so nice and encouraged us to eat as much as possible. Also, there was this one individuals who is a judge who was just really awesome and said she is going to try to organize an event where all of the interns can meet up and hang out. That would be so cool. Anyways, I need to get to bed. I probably made a bunch of mistakes. Good night.

Ebelio

Rethink

Hello Again,
This past week, I started my internship with Rethink. If I have not talked about it, I will do so right now. Rethink is a program that started 2 summers ago. It is a program that was formed to try and think of ways of looking at schools in New Orleans. Every summer since it originated, the program takes on a project that middle school students look at to and try to rethink new ways of going about that issue. Last summer they looked at the restrooms at schools and came up with a green bathroom design. At the end of the summer, the students present the project to the city, the media, the school board and other's in a media conference. This summer we will be working on Food Justice and Campus Safety. With Campus safety, we will be looking at ways of having a safe campus without armed guards and metal deters. Also, we will be trying look at the school to prison pipeline that so many youth find themselves in. With this, we will look at suspension, expulsion, and things of that nature. With the Food Justice, we will be looking at eating healthy, having healthy, recognizable food at campuses, and coming with cafeteria that is clean, and has enough seats for everyone. In addition, we will look at issues like having enough time for eating, make it a priority to have students wash their hands before they eat and other things. In addition to all of this work, we will be going on field trips, have a chef come in to cook and have groups come in. In addition, I will be learning with the students on coming up with a computer game that promotes healthy eating.
This week, we had our orientation, in which we meet the high school interns. We played group games, had conversations, were assigned responsibilities and designed the classroom. In addition to that, my self and Dominique, a Cal student I will be working with, called the students we will be working with this summer, put list together and called individuals we will working with. I have been trying to call some of these individuals but to no avail. I will continue to call and will not stop calling until the pick up their phones.
Tomorrow the program officially begins. I am very excited to get started because I think that Rethink is a great idea and I am excite to be apart of it. I believe that it has the potential to grow and one day it can be in every city in the country.
One last thing, I am pretty happy that the individuals that are interning along side me. It it interesting because we are always joking around. The past couple of days we have all gone out to dinner, wal-mart, the Tomato Creole Festive, had breakfast together and watched Malcolm X together. I hope that we can continue to do that because we are having fun and are enjoying each others presence. Until next time. I will report on the first day of the program.

Ebelio