Our week at BBS is quickly coming to an end and I feel as if
though we just got here. Today, after
having breakfast, we traveled back into the heart of the city to BBS. Once again, Tim worked with the school nurse
and the administrative staff and I worked with the students and teachers in the
classroom. I had three different classes
today, 9th – 11th grade.
Once again, they went well with good discussion and dialogue. In every single one of my presentations, I
had students stick around after class to ask me a few more questions I wasn’t
able to get to during the period. One of
the teachers thanked me after class for coming and explained that many of the
students are very curious about this subject, but they don’t have a safe place
to talk about it. She was very grateful
they were getting this opportunity.
After we finished our day at BBS, the school took us to a
restaurant along the coast for lunch where I thought the food would never
end. I was just getting ready to stop
eating when they brought out the main course, still followed later by desert,
and then coffee. It was a true Lebanese meal. We sat and ate for about 3 hours while
talking about family, education, the school, politics, etc.
However, even though the food was wonderful, my favorite
part of the day came between my classroom presentations at BBS. I was asked to make a presentation to part of
the faculty at the school during their 45 minute morning break. I briefly described the presentations I had
been making with the students since I had not had the privilege to be in their
classrooms and then I spoke generally about prevention. I mostly spoke with them about our research
in risk and protective factors. Many of
you teachers may know this as risky behavior indicators and the 40 developmental
assets. As I began my presentation, I
was encouraged to see the amount of care and dedication they have towards their
students. One of the teachers went to
school at BBS and after finishing college, she returned to BBS where she has
taught for the past 30 years. When I
spoke about the different risk factors, teachers began to express their concern
for some of their students who have some of the indicators I discussed present
in their life. The care and love they
have for their students is very evident.
I let them know that our job in prevention is to help outweigh the risk
factors with protective factors and reminded them that they are already doing a
big part of that work. As I began to go
through the protective factors they were able to see how they were already
implementing some of them into their classroom and began thinking of new ways
to implement some of the others.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time so I wasn’t able to finish my entire
presentation, but neither of us wanted it to end and stayed a few minutes
afterwards continuing to discuss some of their questions. I am grateful for the caring teachers in my
life who helped to provide protective factors for me and I’m grateful for the
dedicated and caring teachers at BBS who are making sure that their students
are encouraged, receive the tools they need to succeed, and above all feel
loved.
Josh Caballero
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