Team Happy, the first group to participate in Stronger Me, Stronger We’s Mind in the Making Spanish track, shared their excitement about taking these workshops in their native language.
Some participants decided to join simply because they were curious. Others came because they interact with children every day. A few participated because they took the 16-hour Mind in the Making workshops months or years before and wanted to strengthen their learnings and build on the concepts they had previously learned.
During the first week, everyone engaged in WOOP interactions, a goal-setting tool that stands for Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan. It was so powerful. We each identified a wish we wanted to fulfill by creating the correct steps and developing the right reasons for taking those steps. Every week, we had the opportunity to share our WOOP progress. The results by session five were amazing and inspiring.
This group connected so well. When the group was brought back from their breakout rooms, they always asked for more time to share more experiences. The energy throughout the five sessions was high!
In all the activities and games we played, the team was super engaged, and their feedback and examples were on point.
According to the participants’ testimonials, their Executive Functions (Working Memory, Cognitive Flexibility, and Inhibitory Control) improved remarkably. The team was always very focused; they did a fantastic job listening to each other without interrupting and remembered that communication could be even more powerful by taking a pause.
In our last session, we had a special guest. Our teaching artist conducted three exercises related to Perspective Taking. In one of the activities, a participant shared how speaking a second language helps develop this skill. It helps others understand how it feels when being very comfortable with their native language and how it becomes challenging to express feelings and thoughts with some insecurity or fear to use the wrong words in a different language. Other participants agreed and built on by saying how they could better empathize with more people because of their experiences as immigrants and learning and speaking English as their second language.
Many showed interest in Mind in the Making Part 2, and I look forward to continuing these conversations where we all learn from each other.
