How Do I Use Kidpower If I am Distance Learning?

By Guest Blogger Annika Prager, Go Girls!

Annika Prager, GoGirls!

Thank you to Kidpower Teenpower Fullpower International for permission to use portions of their exceptional safety and empowerment programs in this post and in GoGirls programs. Kidpower is the global nonprofit leader in ‘People Safety’ education – an international movement of leaders reaching millions of people of all ages, abilities, genders, identities, and walks of life with effective, culturally-competent interpersonal and social safety skills. To learn more, visit https://kidpower.org

Here are some tips on how to use all the Kidpower safety powers that we've taught this summer at Go Girls! at Home to help with the Back-To-School transition. 

KIDPOWER FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL

This Fall you may be meeting with youth participants on Zoom or Google Classroom or maybe the program is engaged in hybrid learning (a mix of online and in-person). No matter what your Back-To-School plans look like these tips will help youth stay safe and have more fun this fall!

Calm and Confident Bodies: Paying attention to Zoom or Google Classroom can be so challenging. Doing school and afterschool from home is not as easy as it may sound. If your youth are anything like me, they probably find themselves getting distracted by every little thing. This is a time when they can use Calm and Confident Bodies. Calm and Confident Bodies means sitting upright with a straight back and head held high. It also means taking a deep breath when they need it. Invite your participants to try to return to their Calm and Confident Body when needed.

Source: Kidpower

Awareness Power: Awareness Power means being “aware” of your feelings! It can mean being aware of how your body, mind, and spirit are feeling. During online learning, you can invite your youth to use this power to help them notice what their body needs. Maybe they need a break? Maybe they need to stand up and stretch? Maybe they need help from a grown-up because their Zoom screen froze? Only they know what they need. At GoGirls Camp, we teach our participants that they have the power to ask for help when they need it.

Mouth Closed Power: When we are in-person, or sometimes even over video, Mouth Closed Power is a reminder to press your top lip against your bottom lip. This power can help youth remember to only speak when it is their turn. It can also help them pause and not say mean words that will make a problem bigger. Mouth Closed Power can even help them remember to take a breath and return to their Calm and Confident Bodies. But what does all this have to do with Back-To-School in a pandemic? Easy! Mouth Closed Power is that little button on the bottom of the screen that says “Mute/Unmute.” They can use this Zoom or Google Classroom feature in all the same ways they would use Mouth Closed Power in-person!


STOP! Power: We always have the power to say “Stop.” From wherever they are, youth can practice building a fence with their hands and saying stop. Beautiful! STOP! Power is perhaps the most powerful of all powers! Instructing your youth to use a loud and proud voice will ensure that others know to bother them less and believe them more. Just because they may be social distancing or distance learning does not mean that their powers are weaker. In fact, they are more important than ever. You can remind your youth participants they have the power to say “STOP,” they have the power to say “Please stop I don’t like that,” and they have the power to say “Stop or I will ask for adult help!”


Source: GoGirls Camp!

Walk Away Power: Last but not least, your youth can still use their Walk Away Power even when distance learning. Walk Away Power means getting the space they need when a safety problem arises. It can mean literally moving out of reach or it can mean turning off their camera or the chat feature to distance themselves from a safety problem. Remind youth they always have the power to ask help from an adult. 

As schools prepare to re-open, afterschool program staff need to consider the experiences of youth who have been away from school and their friends due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We know these vary greatly depending on family income and racial/ ethnic background. What are young people's needs? What should we, as afterschool staff, do to help youth thrive when they return to afterschool programs post COVID? How might we build back school and program culture and a sense of "family" spirit and connection in our afterschool programs? Join Stu Semigran and a panel of afterschool program experts to learn how best to help youth thrive as they return to school and afterschool. To get more information and to register for our next Speaker's Forum, click here.

Annika Prager (they/them) has been with GoGirls Camp! for four Summers. Annika is currently studying Theatre and Women & Gender Studies at Hunter College. When they aren’t teaching at GoGirls Camp, Annika is directing, designing, writing, and acting in plays. 

Effective Strategies to Teach Collaborative Learning Skills

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

The Learning in Afterschool & Summer learning principles have been widely embraced by educators, youth workers, and researchers alike. Learning that is collaborative is not only an essential 21st Century learning skill, it is an employability skill. But how do you actually teach this skill? We ask Allison Kenny, long-time youth worker and Co-Founder of Glitter & Razz Productions and Director of Go Girls! Camp. Her responses are below.

Q: Why do you think young people learning to work and learn collaboratively is important? 

Allison Kenny

A: For one thing, it's simply more fun. Even for kids who initially struggle with collaboration skills, the process of building them decreases loneliness and isolation. Kids who are having more fun and feeling a sense of belonging learn better and more importantly, are happier people. I think this is the most important antidote to violence in schools- addressing loneliness. 

Young people also deserve a chance to learn the job readiness skills that prepare them for life in our fast-paced, flexibly thinking world. Every job in every field requires you to be part of an effective team. Humans were built to work together. We just often forget how.

Q: We know that to do this requires that young people learn certain collaborative skills. What skills do you think are foundational to good collaborative learning?

A: Saying yes- it's a crucial skill in theater improvisation and in life. It means going along with, changing and adapting someone else's idea without shutting it down. "Saying yes" also gives permission to put your own idea out into the world without judgement.

Give & Take- another life skill the theater offers. It means tracking who is center stage and when to step up vs. step back.

Boundaries- Often when young people struggle with collaboration, they are feeling annoyed, invisible or overwhelmed in their work with others. Remembering their power to say what they do and do not want helps. Teaching young people to set and respect one another's boundaries is crucial for successful collaboration.  

Q: How are these skills taught to a group of young people who will be expected to work collaboratively? Can you cite some specific strategies?

A: At Go Girls! Camp, we use theater and expressive art to teach collaboration. Our girls experience how good it feels to say yes to one another's ideas in theater games. "Yes, Let's" is a perfect example. One girl takes center stage with an idea and says, "Hey Go Girls! let's...." and fills in the blank with something all the other girls can DO with her. Imagine she says, "Let's swim with sharks!" All the girls in the group respond with, "Yes, let's!" and pretend to swim with sharks. We play round after round and debrief at the end. "What does this game teach us about working together? How will that help us in real life?"

We teach give & take through our play-making process. Each young person creates a part for the play overall. They get to see how their character matters to the story overall and how to share the spotlight. 

The best way we've found to teach boundary setting is through the Kidpower curriculum by Irene van der Zande. She has amazing books and free articles on the Kidpower website. It's all based in role play and features real life scenarios for kids, teens and adults. 

Q: In designing activities that require effective collaboration, what are essential elements or expectations that the leader must introduce?

A: The leader must be sure each participant in the group has a role. Young people want to be clear on which part they get to be in charge of. There must be an expectation that everyone in the group participate in some way, using roles to address a variety of learning styles. They should be clear how and when to ask for help. They should be given an opportunity to reflect on their experience- both in how it was to work together and how successful they were at the given task.

Q: If young people were working together and learning together through collaboration, what would it look like?

A: The room would feel safe and charged. Young people would be finding and using their own materials, working in close proximity to those in their group, celebrating and cheering one another on, solving problems and addressing conflicts, asking for help only when they truly need it. Everyone would be included. No one left behind.

Q: Do you have any additional comments?

A: Celebrating and appreciating one another is essential for collaboration. Young people can learn how to give and receive compliments, how to bolster themselves up and build self esteem, how to look for the good in one another. This creates a sense of belonging and a way to work with the inner or outer critics that tell kids they have nothing to contribute. 

At Go Girls! Camp, we end every day with a celebration circle, where girls write or draw on the things they loved and learned that day. Other times they celebrate themselves, each other or their teachers. We also teach how to give and receive feedback, so kids can deepen their skills, grow and achieve even more.

______________________

Allison Kenny is an actor, writer, teaching artist, co-founder of Glitter & Razz Productions and Director of Go Girls! Camp. Since 2002, Allison has worked in the Bay Area as a theater teaching artist with kids ages 2-18. For 5 years, she studied Floortime Play Therapy with Dr. Ilene Lee and worked as an inclusion facilitator with kids on the Autism Spectrum. Allison served as a Youth Development Trainer and specialist with the YMCA of San Francisco and The Children, Youth and Families Minister at First Congregational Church of Oakland and an ECE Trainer to Preschool Teachers across Alameda County. In 2012, she became a Certified Instructor with Kidpower, Teenpower, Fullpower International and leads safety workshops for kids and families all over the Bay Area.

As a girl advocate, Allison believes women and girls are the world’s greatest natural resource. “We bring creativity, compassion, nurture, resilience, reliability and love to any challenge and situation. When we forget that, the whole world suffers.” Allison’s work is to create art, experiences, and books for girls and women to remember who we are and why we have value. In 2013, Allison published “Starring Celia,” a chapter book about a 4th grade girl who goes from being bullied to being a “Go Girl!”