In-Person Classroom Workshops Are Back!

After being in classrooms virtually for more than a year, in October we began in-person experiential learning and future goal setting in-class workshops for the 2021-2022 school year. We’re beyond excited to connect with our students and 200 partner teachers face-to-face again! This year we are partnering with 22 Minneapolis middle and high schools, including working with MPS Online, and serving more than 15,000 students through more than 3,000 in-class workshops. All PS activities are delivered by professional and diverse staff called “Facilitators,” who lead monthly activities called “workshops” for each grade level in every English, Special Education, and English Learner classroom for each student in every school. 

One of our first-round of workshops of the year was at Wellstone International High School led by our new facilitator, Christopher Vang, who is also a PS alumnus. The day was extra special as Christopher visited on a day when Wellstone was celebrating a student’s birthday! Wellstone serves students who are nearly all English Language Learners and come into the Wellstone community with unique backgrounds. Each school we partner has its own unique community of students, all trying to connect with their sparks in life. Our facilitators are thrilled to have the opportunity to connect and build relationships in person and in the classroom with students and our partner teachers again.  

From the initial workshops and onward, we put our students first by getting to know them on a deeper level filled with fun, interactive activities that help students build relationships with each other beyond the typical school day. Each PS facilitator spends 2 hours a month training in culturally responsive teaching (CRT), ensuring that we acknowledge and value the cultural backgrounds, identities, and ancestral knowledge that each student and their family brings to our community. Students deepen their relationships with each other and PS Facilitators, and feel seen, valued and heard. Students share and better understand the barriers they and their peers may face and we help them uncover the tools and support they need to face them.  

Our workshop curriculum offers students opportunities to explore their passions and create their future plans. Our middle school curriculum goals are to facilitate the students in dreaming meanwhile building community, setting and achieving goals, and preparing for the transition to high school. Our high school curriculum goals are to help students to further explore their self-understanding and passions and what they may want out of high school, develop their skills to research and make informed choices, and feel prepared for life after graduation. By spring of their senior year, we want all students to have a personal, post-high school plan that best suits their needs, personalities, and goals that will serve their long-term future. 

We build on our monthly classroom workshops to help students put those dreams into action by offering free external experiential programs that help them discover possible paths, through our Institute Certificates, experience live theater to use a as a springboard for life discussions and attend a college or career tour where the experience opens the door to possibilities.  

This is just a small peek into what Project Success does in our workshops, but the core of it all lies in our passion to listen and continually learn from our students so that we can provide them better opportunities and experiences that will equip them wherever they may go in life.