Gandhi Brigade Youth Media

GRRL Tech, an extracurricular club geared to middle school girls interested in
technology, offers enriching activities such as web programming, self-identity workshops, blogging and music videos. GRRL Tech is one on the two programs that are held at Eastern Middle School and is run by Passion 4 Learning and Class Acts Arts in collaboration with Gandhi Brigade. The other program is called Young Writers Academy; they use media to increase students literacy. Gandhi Brigade promoters Emmanuel and Prusse are always excited to help their peers get the most out of the program.

Lead instructor Sarah states, “Middle school girls develop a better understanding of technology and increase the comfort of the promoters by teaching their peers”.

To kick off the action-packed day, the students, alongside the instructors, play icebreakers. One of the games played is called Blob. Similar to musical chairs, the person who gets into the blob last is out. This game helped warm up the girls for a day full of creative thinking.

In web programming students learned HTML and then applied that knowledge to create and design the formats for their blogs. These blogs are a way for the students to express their interests, stories and music videos.

The stories and interests are part of a self-identity workshop, where the students post pictures that portray their personality and then write a short story about it.

Prusse says, “It’s a chance for girls to express themselves and their passion for
technology”.

The girls are currently making music videos with the help of choreographer, Junious Brickhouse. He teaches the girls some entertaining dance moves. They also work on the storyboards so they can plan their music video.

The girls find the program to be exhilarating and educational. They all had a wide range
of goals. One of the girls, Kennedy, dreamed of becoming a famous singer. She joined the
program to help her reach her goal and meet new people.

Kennedy said, “GRRL Tech helped me become more social and the best parts about it are the teachers and my friends”.

If you would like to see more pictures, click this link:

http://www.flickr.com//photos/22948243@N07/show/

I think Erin Barry is a very good girl that is doing her part to help the people in Haiti. She is very concentrated on what she wanted to do and has donated over 1,000 pairs of shoes to Haiti for kids who dan’t have shoes. Erin Barry is a girl that really wants to help people and really cares and thinks about people other than her self. She is 13 years old and she is amazing on what she did because it seemed unexpected from her because she is my age and you. She has inspired me to write this about her and what she did for the people in Haiti and the kids that still don’t have shoes and she did the right thing making all the communty that want to acually help out. I think she did a good job of helping

The State of Maryland Board of Education has proposed new regulations for the gifted and talented education system. These systems will instruct local school systems on how to identify gifted students, report their progress and design new programs. In my perspective this proposal comes with the consequences of labeling of students, putting certain groups of students at disadvantage and removing equity from the students population. The majority of groups that would be affected would consist of African American, Hispanic and English- Language Learners. This will widen the achievement gap. The board will be voted on this regulation on March 28, 2012 according to the Washington Post. Take action by sending letter, calling, emailing and speaking out to your representatives of why this regulation does not determine success of individual groups of children.