Giving Dreams Faces

I think I've mentioned before that I coordinate and teach a program called AVID at my school. It stands for advancement via individual determination. I'm not crazy about the name, but that's exactly what it is; a program for students who are determined to succeed...not necessarily the brightest and the smartest (although they are in most cases), but definitely the most driven. It's my first year teaching it and it was rough going at first. I made sure to give the impression that the program is rigorous and meaningful, but had a hard time living up to my promises in the beginning. Since then, I can gratefully say that our AVID students have grown significantly already and are starting to grow attached to each other as well as with me. We've written personal mission statements, organized a fundraiser walk to donate to Stop Child Trafficking Now, we have student-driven tutorials twice a week, everyone takes amazing cornell notes in all their classes, and now we're writing personal statement essays focusing on different aspects of our life goals. They complain they have to do extra work, but they secretly love it. I've never known what it feels like to teach a class full of enthusiastic students until this year, and it's really refreshing.

Something else I've been doing for my AVID students is bringing in special speakers from different professions and backgrounds. So far we've had our principal, my sister who's a consultant, a friend who works for a major advertising company, and a co-worker's contact who works for Jet Blue's marketing department. Besides the fact that I make my students feverishly take notes during these presentations, they love it and learn things they've never even heard of. I've been shocked how amazing my friends and family have been to be willing to give up a part of their work day to speak to my students, complete with sophisticated power point slides. All of our guests are helping my students to connect real faces and stories to careers they've only seen on TV (you'd be amazed how many kids say, "I want to be CSI," but don't even know what the acronym stands for). Thank you guys so much!

Next, I also want to take my AVID students beyond our school walls and into different work places and colleges. One thing I know about dreams is that it's much easier to dream and pursue goals when you've see them. Any takers? =P