NERD ALERT: VOLUME 1

In between hikes there is work to be done and indoor fun to be had! I just started my internship at Opn Wyd (pronounced open wide) doing diversity trainings, participated in a Health Fair at Germantown High School in Philly, and did a presentation about LGBT youth groups for a class taught by David Hall. I have also been offered an internship at the Beverly Hills Middle School in Upper Darby as a guidance counselor in the fall.

My first diversity training for Opn Wyd was on May 5th at Lower Merion High School. Mark Good, manager/founder of Opn Wyd had a prepared a training on Sythesizing White Privilege that he prepared for 10-15 faculty members at the high school. I won't get into the details of the training other than that it used white literature to demonstrate the absence of other races/ethnicities. What I will share is the tour I took of LMHS. I had never been in there before and it legit reminded me of a college. Growing up in Worcester and going to North High School, I was not use to seeing a school that had a swimming pool, lounge/study areas, every student in the building had their own Macbook, and the cafeteria had booth seating. Perhaps these features sound commonplace, but for me it was amazing! I could not believe that this was a public school, nor could I understand why almost half of the parents in the district still sent their kids to private schools, when LMHS totally rates. Also I quickly renamed the LMHS to the Kobe Bryant school, since his face appears all over the building. I later found out that because he attended LMHS for a year or two he recently came back and donated some money to the school.

The health fair on May 10th was set up with multiple booths. Each booth had a game where kids could win prizes and in order to participate students paid in tickets, almost like an amusement park/fair. The booth I was responsible for was the condom races. I had three students at a time race to see who could correctly put a condom on a banana quickest. The prizes for the competition were silly things like clappers, tops, glasses with a mustache, and Chinese finger traps. I had brought in my computer for two reasons: one to play current pop/hip-hop music to attract the teens and second to have a video of a condom demonstration looping so that kids who were waiting to race could watch how to put a condom on. I had created a brief set of instructions/rules for putting on a condom. When the youth came to my booth the first thing I did was go over the steps for how to put on a condom with a model. I placed the condom with the expiration date down (to make sure they flipped it over and looked) and then hollered go! If a youth missed a step I made them start over. I'm pretty sure I yelled "Don't forget to pinch the tip" more than anything else that day. It was by far the most popular booth at the fair and I had a great deal of fun. It was an interesting dynamic, I easily had twice as many girls compete. I had one kid tell me that one of the girl's cheated. When I asked him how she cheated (even though I had clearly watched her put it on appropriately), he responded by saying "She had prior experience!" Hands down the funniest thing I heard all day.

On Thursday May 19th I did an hour and half presentation for a graduate level class called Creating Safe Spaces: Addressing LGBTQ Issues in Schools. Having spent the last three years volunteering at either Safe Homes or Mainline Youth Alliance, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) youth groups, I did a presentation on my experience working with this population, the advantages to these group organizations (especially with regard to creating safe spaces), the experience of a gay adolescent, and the difference between a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) and LGBT youth group. I spent at least five hours preparing, writting the lesson plan, and searching through media clips for this presentation. The final product had to be cut in half because the speaker before me was caught in traffic, ran over time, and ended up going later then anticipated. In order to get those fabulous adult learners out of the workshop on time (something which is clearly valued), as the closing presenter I decided to cut one of the activities. I presented for a little over an hour. I began by having participants introduce themselves to me by name and share a high from their week, it was really adorable how many of them wanted to express stories about gay teenagers, student/personal acheivement, or even just tell me about how the grass in the back yard has finally grown back. Then I gave a brief introduction of who I am and how I got to working with youth groups. I did a powerpoint presentation on the benefits of LGBT youth groups and for an activity I showed GLEE clips to demonstrate the experience of a gay adolescent and an ally by watching the characters Kurt & Finn interact. The group was excellent we had a lively discusion about both perspectives.