Category Archives: Monday Motivation

Mentoring Changes Lives

This week I took some time to talk to students about mentors.  I didn’t really know what a mentor was until my senior year in high school.  When I was in the 12th grade, my Spanish teacher Ms. Susie Castro Clark took me under her wing and connected me to the support I needed from students and teachers at New Mexico State University. They helped me find the confidence and resources I needed to continue my education after high school to become a college student.  This experience helped me recognize how teachers and other people in the community could help me advance in my education and career.  As a result, I ended up having more than one mentor throughout my journey as a student.  Below is a video about the importance of mentors, especially for youth that are experiencing hardships in their lives and need help.  Check it out!

If you’re a student, think about who you would consider a mentor in your life as a student.  If you’re a parent, ask your child if they have a mentor or know what a mentor is. If your child is struggling, consider connecting them with a mentor either through school or community supports. And as for teachers, who were your mentors growing up that helped you in your education or career? Would you consider yourself a mentor today?

Stories of Hope & Help

Recently, I completed a training focused on suicide prevention by Merily Keller. Ms. Keller is a Suicide Prevention & Postvention Trainer.  One of the resources she shared lead me to the Texas Suicide Prevention website and the true stories of Hope & Help from the Mental Health America of Texas organization. It made me think about a presentation that one of our student’s gave in class related to resources that students can access online to help address issues of depression and suicide.  On the website it states that the Hope & Help videos are “from high school or college age youth who have either reached out for help themselves when they were severely depressed and having suicidal thoughts, or from teens who have reached out to help a friend who was thinking of suicide.”  This week’s #MondayMotivation will focus on these stories of Hope & Help to educate youth on the resources that are available to help themselves or someone in need. Below is a video titled “Ribbons of Hope”, Maggie’s true story of Hope & Help. If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide and needs someone to talk to please reach out to your school counselor or contact one of the crisis lines below:

1-800-273-8255
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

915-779-1800
El Paso Crisis Hotline
El Paso, Texas

Crisis Text Line
741741

Make Wise Choices by Ruth Rivas #MondayMotivation

This week schools celebrated Red Ribbon Week which promotes drug prevention efforts with a special focus on the well-being of youth. This year’s theme is “Your future is key, so stay drug free.”  At the start of each week we begin class with what I call Monday Motivation. I was inspired by the social media hashtag from Edutopia of the same name which focuses on inspirational quotes for teachers.  Our Monday Motivation is aimed at inspiring and educating students by shining a light on voices from our community who are making an impact on society. This also includes our own students and teachers and their impact in our classrooms, school, and community.   In recognition of Red Ribbon Week, our Monday Motivation came from a poem by Ruth Rivas titled ‘Make Wise Choices’. I recorded the poem several years ago. The instrumental included with the song was produced by one of my former students when I volunteered as a poetry teacher at a juvenile prison in New Mexico. Ruth Rivas is a speaker and educator from El Paso and founder of Spice is Not Nice, a non-profit organization dedicated to raise awareness and educate the public about the dangers of spice and other synthetic drugs.  On June 20, 2012, her son, Adam Hernandez who was in the Navy at the time lost his life after using spice.  This poem was written in memory of her son and as a cautionary tale to encourage young people to live a drug free lifestyle.

“Our choices take us to our destiny…” – Ruth Rivas