Reflection #1
The process of working on my product is going well. It definitely needs to be focused on more. For the most part, I know what I want to do as my first product, but am having trouble figuring out where to start. The group project part has been slow but also slightly difficult. That is due to our research team being the biggest in our cohort, we had to split off into an uneven amount and each have scheduling conflicts. But this is just another hurdle that we’ll be able to go over and be able to get any work done that is needed like passed semesters.
I believe that the aspects of Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy informs the work we continue to do because following something emergent allows different breakthroughs or shifts in play. Allowing new breakthroughs allows new discoveries, while we continue to work through our group project we can discover more benefits of a mentorship or discover why it may not be beneficial. As for my individual product (the first one), I can discover how the hispanic population could/would benefit from having a mentor or why it won’t.
CODES 320 Contract
Reflection #2
Land as pedagogy
Work in CODES
Every land we experience is different. For our work in Alton there isn’t much we could personally speak about the land of Alton. But we could see it, we saw it physically and through the kids. The kids are the ones growing up in Alton, living through the pretty and the ugly of Alton. We do have to be grateful for said land though because without it we wouldn’t be mentors. Though we are all from different backgrounds I feel that’s almost perfect especially since it may bring a better mentor/mentee relationship. Bringing our differences to light and being able to engage in conversation and be open to all backgrounds.
Within my life
American Grown With Mexican Roots. That is something I take with me everyday. Although born and raised in the land of the Free, my heritage/roots are Mexican. My grandfather came from Suchil, Durango making our bloodline a part of the beautiful city he was from. Since I can remember my life has always been filled with Mexican culture, from the dishes my grandma/mom/Tias made to the music and dancing you saw within our family and the language we spoke. My first language was Spanish and at 5 years old I learned english. Although he was in foreign land, my grandfather worked hard to pave the way on this land for his wife, daughters and granddaughters. He did everything for us so we could promise we wouldn’t forget what land we come from and to realize I have the ability to strive and accomplish what I set my heart to do.
Reflection #3
Out of the five principles the most relevant that has been present in my work with CODES would have to be Principle number 1: Join the community and Principle number 5: Tell better stories. The explanation as to why principle number one is pretty self explanatory, we needed to join the community we wanted to impact to understand better as to what the students needed, to know and understand where they grew up in and why they maybe how they are. But us joining the community was also so it was seen that we cared and truly wanted to help. Being in the community truly helped us connect and we can only hope it helped them connect as well. The second principle I chose that has been relevant is to tell better stories. It’s not that we didn’t tell good stories, but more so that we did share stories. We shared our beginning,middle and present. We told them our strengths and weaknesses, we showed our vulnerable side in hopes we’d connect with the students and that they realize yes we may have made it to college, but it wasn’t an easy road for a handful of us, so they shouldn’t be discouraged or not strive to go to college just because of some hurdles that come their way.
For me the most relevant now would have to be Principle number 3: Invoke emotion with intention. I believe this is the most relevant for me because now in the work of doing our products I plan to talk about how strongly I believe it would have been nice to see a hispanic population be helped as well. Simply for the reason of myself being Hispanic when I was younger I would have liked to get the mentorship from an older Hispanic girl. Now I do have my mom and other strong female presence, but I will never relate to having the presence of someone my age and of the same ethnicity that could have understood and related to me.