Today’s Class – September 13, 2019

Stephen Cronin explains the Goals of the Life Skills class to the 2019 – 2020 class.

The Goals of the Hope Life Skills program are –  

#1.  build student self-esteem;  confidence.   #2. introduce the concept of “personal brand“,  in other words, the way others think about and/or perceive us, AND understand how a person’s brand EITHER creates opportunities for success for life OR eliminates opportunities for success for life.    #3. Have students use their brands to build networks of successful people who can advise and help them for life.   #4.  Introduce students to jobs and careers they are presently interested in OR jobs and careers they may not know about  #5.  teach and develop important communication skills especially collaboration, presentation, personal greeting, and writing skills.”

Stephen  Cronin explained to the students his commitment to their success. 

I am like your personal coach committed to helping you become a successful person for life by introducing and developing important skills and attitudes that most successful people use and constantly look to improve upon throughout their lives.  I will work hard to help you become a successful person.

I will do this as long as you fulfill my expectations which are –

#1 come to class on time, all the time.  For days when extraordinary circumstances prevent you from being coming to class and being on time, you text, call, or email me asap to explain reasons for your tardiness or absence.   #2Do YOUR HOMEWORK all the time and on time.  For days when extraordinary circumstances prevent you from completing your homework on the due date, you MUST text, call, or email me asap to explain reasons for your inability to pass in your homework on the due date AND THEN TELL ME the date you will most certainly complete your homework and turn it in to me.   #3ASK QUESTIONS – they are more important than answers!   All questions are important; there is no such thing as a dumb question.     #4.  say “THANK YOU” , always, when someone does something for you. Follow up ‘thank you‘ emails and hand written notes and cards help you build a great brand with people you network with!!    #5. PUSH OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE.   FOR EXAMPLE – Go on class field trips and introduce yourself to the successful people at the event. Ask for their business cards and give them yours!    ANOTHER EXAMPLE – Volunteer to be a class host-for-the-day by welcoming a class guest to our class and Hope High before the class starts THEN escort the guest into our classroom to introduce him or her to your classmates before the class starts. PUSH YOURSELF!!!!   #6.  Know MISTAKES are part of life and can present you with a great opportunity for learning something important that will make you a stronger and wiser person!   Don’t give up!!!!!  Keep working hard AND YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL.   #7NETWORK CONSTANTLY!”

“I look forward to reading your homework.   I also look forward to seeing you in ROOM 112 next Friday.”

 

 

Today’s Class: May 24, 2019

Arnell stands beside his super-hero car upon arriving at Hope High today. Upon leaving the building after class and approaching his car, Arnell simply said “START” and the car started.

Today’s guest was Claude Arnell Milhouse,

Founder of Inner City Geeks, Co-Founder and CTO of Common Connect App, and Co-Founder and CEO of CareerDevs Computer Science Academy.

Our Life Skills host who welcomed Arnell to the Life Skills class today was Kevin Torres.

Kevin Torres introduces Arnell to his classmates at the beginning of today’s class.

Selene Bun welcomes Arnell to class after Kevin Torres’ introduction.

Today’s Class: May 17, 2019

Today’s class featured Raymond Perez, a soon to be Syracuse University 2020 graduate,

a 2016 Hope High School graduate, and 2015 Hope Life Skills student who returned to the Life Skills class today to share with students his interesting perspective on making the most of yourlife after Hope’ opportunities.

Our Life Skills host today was Darwin Morales

who welcomed Raymond back to Hope High and introduced him to his Life Skills classmates.

Darwin (right) introduces Raymond Perez to his Life Skills classmates to start today’s class.  Great job, Darwin!

Kevin Castenada welcomes Raymond back to Hope High after Darwin’s introduction. A good indication how effective Kevin’s greeting was is the look on Raymond’s face.  Good job, Kevin.  Ms Nuri looks on proudly.

Raise your expectations of your students, Mr Cronin and Ms Nuri.  Please.  Demand more!  I was not prepared for college.   

Today’s Class: May 10, 2019

Today’s guest was an amazing, young, courageous, and very successful woman who shared her very personal and inspirational story with us.

Today’s host who welcomed her to our Hope Life Skills class was Isabella Caraballo.

Isabella welcomes Claudia Cardozo, entrepreneur, leadership consultant, and Community Banking Development Manager, to the Hope High Life Skills class.

Isabella introduces Claudia to her classmates to open today’s Life Skills class.

Kevin Torres welcomes Claudia to our class as other students wait to do the same.

Claudia begins to share her inspirational, personal story about her early life, emigration to the United States, and onto her present day, successful career.

Today’s Class: April 12, 2019

Today’s guest was Dr Roey Tzezana, an Israeli futurist and physicist,

Dr Roey sharing his vision of the future with our students.

co-founder and CEO of TeleBuddy – a robotics company, the author of “Guide to the Future” and “Rulers of the Future” and, recently, the featured presenter at Hope Life Skills’ annual FUTURE FORUM held each December at Hope High School.

Dr Roey shared his vision of

an artificial intelligence (AI) directed future.

From a

cure of aging and robot lifeguards (drones) to autonomous vehicle and robot pizza delivery, 

Today’s Class: March 29, 2019

Today class focused on the creation and use of an Excel Spreadsheet for the collection and segmentation (organization) of data

to facilitate (help) our analysis of the data and the ultimate decision which comes from our analysis.

Ms Pam Avarista, a Hope High School Computer Science teacher, introduced the fundamentals of Excel and its application for the Life Skills student’ “Neighborhood Analysis” activity.

Ms Avarista begins today’s class on the fundamentals for creating an Excel Spreadsheet.

Students reviewing their data, segmenting and rating it in Excel, before their analysis of the data and ultimate decision.

Today’s Class: March 22, 2019

Today’s guest was Junior Jabbe,

the President of Banneker Industries located in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Today’s host was Christian Hernandez.

Junior Jabbe (left) is welcomed to Hope High School and the Hope Life Skills class by Christian Hernandez prior to the start of today’s class.

Christian introduces Junior Jabbe to his classmates to start today’s class.

Aaron Chy welcomes Junior Jabbe with confident eye contact and a firm handshake following Christian’s introduction.

Paola Varrella introduces herself to Junior Jabbe and welcomes him to today’s class. Please note Paola’s firm handshake and welcoming smile which certainly made Junior feel comfortable at Hope High.

Today’s Class: March 15, 2019

Today’s guest was Ed Ithier, Sales Program Manager at the Xerox Corporation.

Xerox is an American global corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries around the world.  Accompanying Ed Ithier was Nick Decesare, the Creative Director at Signature Printing in East Providence, Rhode Island.

David Narvaez and Darwin Morales were our hosts

today welcoming Ed Ithier and Nick Decesare to Hope High School and the Hope Life Skills class.

Today’s conversation was about basketball, recruiting, taking advantage of networking opportunities

through hard work, pushing out of your comfort for a diverse network of successful people, good time management, and always doing the right thing to create a powerful personal brand.

Ed Ithier (right side of photo with water bottle in hand) speaking with David Narvaez while Darwin Morales (far left) welcomes Nick Decesare to the Life Skills class.

David introduces one of his Hope High basketball teammates to Ed Ithier prior to the start of today’s class.

David introduces Ed Ithier to his classmates while Darwin waits to do the same with Nick Decesare.

Today’s class: March 8, 2019

Today’s class focused on the every day challenge of finding ‘the truth’,

i.e. honest information we can trust that is accurate to make good decisions for the life we aspire to.   Making good decisions based on accurate, truthful information from credible sources is not easy today based on the amount of prejudice, propaganda, biased tweets, purposeful ‘misinformation’, and ‘fake news‘ we encounter on social media, newspapers, and network and cable news from once trusted sources like news anchors and reporters, community and religious leaders and our elected politicians.  Today’s class attempted to establish a few

 ‘best practices’ for finding honest, accurate, truthful, non-biased, objective, factual information from trustworthy sources to make good decisions.

The classroom setting for today’s conversation.   Students examine a list of ‘statements’ to determine which are ‘fact’, or opinion or ‘just wrong‘!

After students made their individual decisions on the statement list, students work in groups to make collaborative decisions on the list of statements.

A few things to keep in mind when evaluating data to find information which is non-biased, truthful, honest, credible, and accurate.

 

 

 

Today’s Class: February 25, 2019

The Management of today’s class was assumed by Hope High student,  Robert Desilets.

Robert took the lead and the facilitator role for today’s conversation among the Hope Life Skills students and our guests,  Brown University students Alisa Huban and Meghan Mozea.    Alisa, from Austin, Texas, and Meghan, from a small town in western Massachusetts, shared their compelling personal stories from public high school educations to the Ivy League classrooms of Brown University.

Robert Desilets gives the ‘ok’ to start today’s class.

Upon Robert’s cue, Maricruz Flores leads our guests and classmate, Lucy Salado, into the Life Skills classroom.

Lucy (left in the jean jacket in this photo) introduces Alisa (to Lucy’s left) to her classmates to start today’s class as Maricruz awaits to do the same with Meghan.

Hope students welcome Alisa and Meghan to their class following Lucy and Maricruz’s introductions.