"A" Christmas Tree

Kallyn DePoppe is a Residential Life staff member who works with the women in Home A in the evenings. This week, she told me about a meaningful Christmas activity she prepared for her students to decorate their home and ready their hearts for Christmas.

“I led a devotional with the girls using a large Christmas tree cut-out and ornaments with the girls’ names written on them.

I told them the tree symbolizes Home A, and the ornaments are the girls who live there.

We talked about Christmas and the reason people exchange gifts.

We talked about how God has given us all gifts in our talents and abilities, and how we should share those gifts with others. We discussed how, if everyone is using their gifts to serve others in Home A, it will help create unity and harmony.

We went through Scripture verses that talked about those things. Afterwards, I asked the girls to each tell me a special talent or ability God had given them and how they could use it to serve their housemates. I then had them write it on a present to put under the tree.

After the devotional, we played a Christmas trivia game and had a blast! The girls really seemed to understand and enjoy the whole evening.”

 

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

Balloons, Brownies & Babies

Day 4 of the 31 for 21Challenge

It’s easy to get caught up in all the important, serious things of college – the reading, the counseling, the studying, the testing, and of course, planning and preparing for THE FUTURE. It’s why the students are here.

But it’s also important to remember that while in the midst of doing all the mind-expanding, future-building stuff, other activity should be going on – new friendships are developing, appropriate relationships are growing, character is strengthening, social skills are being enhanced, purpose is becoming clear, and God is becoming more and more real in individual’s lives.

It’s this other activity that gives richness and depth to the educational experience.

When I hear stories of moments that add color to the black and white of the daily learning process, when our students are active and happy and engaged in life, when students look beyond their own struggles and look for ways to positively impact another’s life – I put aside my other plans of writing Board reports and press releases to tell them. These moments are part of the growth and success of the students as they go through the Shepherds College program.

Thank you to Angela Houk, Dean of Shepherds College, for sharing this story with me:

Mrs. Brasch is the Residential Life staff for Home A, the living area for our 2^nd year female students.

She is also very pregnant with baby Noah.

Our student Katy wanted to celebrate and honor Mrs. Brasch during this exciting time in her life so came up with the idea to throw a baby shower. Her Academic Advisor, Mrs. Konopasek, thought it was a great plan and began organizing the event with Katy and the other students.

The girls worked out a way to get Mrs. Brasch out of the home on the night of the event. She was asked to visit another student in her new apartment, and Mrs. Brasch went. Their plan was successful!

They had 20 minutes to hang streamers, balloons and signs. They quickly displayed the gifts and set up the games. Then they turned off the lights, found hiding spots, and waited…

“Surprise!!”

Mrs. Brasch walked in the door to laughter, yelling and hugs from the students. They gave her a ribbon of honor reading, “It’s a boy.”

The party was filled with lots of groans and laughter as the ladies played guess the baby food and candy bar games.  Jars of unlabeled baby food were passed around the table for tasting and smelling before guessing the types of food Noah would someday eat - beef and gravy, sweet potatoes, beans, turkey and broth, bananas, pears, carrots, applesauce, and peas.  The fruit was a hit, but the meat and vegetables alarmed more than a few taste buds. 

The next game consisted of diapers filled with melted candy bars.  One by one, the diapers were passed around and the ladies guessed the candy bar by looking, touching, and I’m horrified to say, occasionally tasting!   

The last game was Guess How Big - the ladies unrolled toilet paper to estimate Mrs. Brasch’s circumference. Is it polite to say that she and Noah needed 13 squares to wrap around their middle?

Winners of each game received lip gloss and hand lotion as prizes...

... and then everyone enjoyed a brownie ice cream sundae, coffee, or hot chocolate.  

Presents were next, and Noah received toys, diapers, lotion, and outfits. 

The night ended with prayer for a safe delivery for both mom and baby. Please join us in that prayer for Mrs. Brasch and her growing family. 



Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

Teacher Tuesday: A Meeting of the Minds

Day 2 of the 31 for 21 Challenge

Not only is it Teacher Tuesday on the blog, but it’s also Teacher Tuesday at Shepherds College.

Every Tuesday at noon, the faculty and staff meet in the conference room for discussion and training. Today, the Residential Life Staff and the Academic Advisors met for an hour, and I was invited to attend. On alternating weeks, the faculty will meet. This time serves several important purposes:

1.       The staff gets to fellowship!  For a short period, they get to break away from being teachers, counselors, managers and disciplinarians and just focus on being co-workers, peers and friends. They each bring their lunches, and the room smells wonderfully of things like homemade Caesar salads, Subway sandwiches, and watermelon. They chat about upcoming weddings, babies, the Packer game and Pinterest.

2.       They pray and invite God into their thoughts, their conversation and their day.

3.       Announcements are made. Today they talked about upcoming staff training, an atypical class schedule for October 26^th and a Horticulture Field Trip on October 19^th for Joe, Daniela, Sean and Donovan.

4.       We have a Preview Day coming up! On October 12^th, parents, prospective students, teachers and any other interested parties are invited to campus to learn more about our unique program. Today, the staff talked about the schedule of events and worked out which 1^st year students will host our visitors. These hosts will sit at the lunch table with the prospective students to make them feel comfortable and welcome, talk to them about their experiences at Shepherds, and take them to the Bolthouse Center after the meal to play games while their parents attend more meetings.

5.       Shepherds College is a ground-breaking program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. There are other programs out there that are similar, but none just like us. We are constantly trying to improve, so we set the bar high and then keep raising it. This means we are continuously learning, continuously growing, and continuously pushing our limits. This means training. 

Today, Mrs. Konopasek taught the staff an exercise called Circles of Control using R.E.A.L. teaching methods.

            Mrs. Konopasek had staff stepping in and out of hula hoops in response to verbal examples of things a student might or might not have control over. When “your breakfast” was stated, the staff stepped into the hula hoop to show that they were in control of what they ate; when “your height” was stated, the staff stepped out of the hula hoop to show that it was something out of their control. 

            She then passed around an “I’m in Charge” handout designating feelings and actions that we can or cannot control – green for go (yes, I can control it!) and red for stop (No, I can’t control it!). By learning this lesson on control, students will grow to understand that we can influence people by our words and actions, but ultimately we cannot control them.

            The staff then paired off to talk about ways the circle of control can be taught and reinforced in the Residential Life and Academic/Advising settings.

            In past meetings, Mrs. Konopasek taught a process written about by Michelle Garcia Winner called Social Behavior Mapping. She revisited this topic and showed the staff how to use the Circles of Control in conjunction with Social Behavior Mapping for an effective visual presentation of the consequences of trying to control others. 

Miss Houk ended the meeting by asking the staff to apply what they learned about Circles of Control toward specific issues that arise with the students in the classrooms and living areas.

It’s not every day that I can leave work wiser and empowered with knowledge. I now feel adequately prepared to go home and take on my teenage daughter. She may be outside my hula hoop, but I just picked up the skills needed to map her social behavior.

The students aren’t the only people learning at Shepherds College.

 
Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.