Count Up

When you’re little and learning your numbers, counting backwards is supposed to be harder, more advanced, than counting up.  As an adult, I’m reminded more and more often how difficult it can truly be to count up.  I would like to share a personal example first to illustrate this.  

At the gym I count constantly during my workout.  Counting is how I motivate myself, and it is the way I keep my mind occupied while I survive particularly strenuous sequences of exercises.  I convinced myself that counting may be of benefit to me in my physical gains.  Yet, emotionally, it is unproductive, because counting provides too many opportunities for me to believe I missed my mark or not measure up to what I thought I could do.  For example, if I normally do one squat jump per second, when the fifth round comes and I just can’t make it, I’m disappointed.  If I always count 30 kettlebell swings in 50 seconds, but my grip gives out and I need extra time to rest in between, I can end up hearing the message that I did not receive the benefit I was supposed to.  

During the last month, several workouts forced me to try a different approach, count up.  When the rounds start, I move and I count.  When the next round comes for the same exercise, instead of trying to hit that number again, I count up, adding on, so that at the end of the workout I have a grand total.  It is always high enough to be worth celebrating.  How have I applied this recently professionally?

Rock County 4-H was awarded an Expanding Access grant from the Wisconsin 4-H Foundation.  We used a portion of these funds to create a series of family reading sessions developed with a community partner around themes of diversity, equity and inclusion.  Specifically the books and activities were chosen to educate about microaggressions and connect them to the Essential Element of Belonging within the 4-H program.  From the beginning, my colleague and I were intentional about identifying, connecting with and designing alongside leaders in the 4-H program and our community partner’s expertise.  The collaboration and promotion took place over several months and the final number of participants is not high.  However, we still have much to celebrate as a result of this program experience.  Let me count up:

• Identified youth and adult leaders through participation in the Racial Justice Conference
• Engaged clubs who met to discuss program content and ideal strategies to promote
• Youth who voted on their favorite books
• Likes and shares on the Facebook page
• Increased awareness by developing community partnerships that this content matters to 4-H
• Examples of creative connections between invited partners and program participants they are working with
• # participants signed up
• A shared leadership project with local partner implementation that will provide ongoing opportunities to continue counting

During programming throughout COVID, and especially now as we move into nicer weather and more virtual fatigue, we simply cannot count on our numbers staying the same.  Programmers and educators are tired.  Participants are tired.  As we adapt and change content, we cannot expect that participants will be ready immediately.  A switch up in exercise combinations can also cause you to drop reps or weights, but growth is still happening.  We must count up.

The resources this month are fewer in number but focused in depth of content.  Please take time and count your time up while reading, even for minutes or pages and especially by ideas and questions.

Resources

The Voices of Wisconsin Students Project-Learning, Coping, and Building Resilience During COVID-19 project documents the voices of Wisconsin students and provides key insights on how they are coping with the challenges of school, learning, and life during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The goal was to better understand how Wisconsin students are coping with school, learning, and life in general during COVID-19 and to understand the nature of students’ sources of stress and anxiety and their thoughts on what support they need. Equally important was to identify examples of students’ success and resiliency. To gather this information, 160 middle and high school students from across Wisconsin participated in one of 23 focus groups hosted by WIPPS Research Partners in January and February 2021.  Separate reports of the project findings have been prepared for middle and high school age groups. They can be accessed at the links below or via the WIPPS Research Partners website.

 ACCESS THE HIGH SCHOOL REPORTS HERE 

https://wipps.org/research-partners/Voices-High-School 

https://wipps.org/research-partners/Voices-High-School-supplemental 

 ACCESS THE MIDDLE SCHOOL REPORTS HERE  

https://wipps.org/research-partners/Voices-Middle-School 

https://wipps.org/research-partners/Voices-Middle-School-supplemental 

 The information gathered from this project can help inform discussions about how to support students’ ongoing learning during COVID-19. In addition, understanding the nature of students’ stress and anxiety, avenues of support, and barriers to accessing that support can help organizations make more informed decisions about the allocation of mental health and wellness resources. Students themselves report many examples of positive coping strategies that may provide a foundation for new ideas or plant the seeds for new programs that could benefit students more broadly in the future. So while this project was conducted in the evolving context of COVID-19, the students’ insights and feedback can have implications and value beyond the immediate school year. 

Please feel free to share these reports with individuals within your organization who may find them to be of interest. If you prefer that PDF versions be emailed to you directly, please reach out to Sharon Belton at sbelton@uwsa.edu.  

A key piece in my professional development includes counting up from negative spaces, ones that were blind spots, but that are now opportunities.  Throughout the beginning of 2021, I had the opportunity to participate in a series of racial equity workshops facilitated by August Ball.  Below are resources I found useful and perhaps you will as well.  

• Review the Racial Identity Development Model (pgs. 2 & 3) that most aligns with your racial identity.Robin DiAngelo’s article, No, I Won’t Stop Saying White Supremacy
• Read “Why my “good intentions” are not enough to dismantle White Superiority” by Francesca Moroney
• Begin familiarizing yourself with attributes of White Supremacy Culture as defined by Tema Okun, and reflect on the ways in which they show up in your own actions.

I focus on improvement and marking my growth by counting up.  More importantly, I’m no longer counting alone but in conversation.

As I continue to develop aspects of support for youth led programming and youth spaces within community programming, each piece adds value, and subsequent definition, to the work.  Check out these recently added resources on my website tab under Youth Leadership Development.  The resources focus on designing and funding your work.  They will continue to be updated within the links listed.  They include:Research Foundations,  Planning and Implementation,  Grants and Funding.