Stephanie Doubet

The kids coming into JDC typically have very stressed and impoverished family backgrounds and are either starved for your attention or try to keep you as far away from knowing them as possible. What I enjoy about the lesson activities and lecture topics are the open ended discussion questions and the hypothetical scenarios that allow for the students to have a voice and share their opinion without judgment. They LOVE to be asked what they think or to be asked to create an argument for or against a topic. This promotes WILLING student involvement which is a slice of heaven. In addition, many of the topics within the curriculum hit very close to home for our students, i.e. discussing self-control, loyalty, duty, and tolerance. Often times the discussion stemming from the activity or topic takes us down a really interesting road of healthy debating, the sharing of new perspectives, and story telling which is very healthy for these students. I am enjoying this curriculum and feel that most weekly topics can be adapted to fit a variety of student cultures and populations.