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 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.

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.

Today’s guest was Nan Quinlan,

a senior career consultant at Transition Solutions and the former Training and Development Manager at TACO Inc, a multi-million dollar, international company in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Today’s host was Arthur Bonga.

Today’s conversation focused on best practices for a successful job interview.

Arthur Bonga welcomes Nan Quinlan back to Hope High and, from Nan’s reaction, Arthur does a great job making Nan feel comfortable before the start of today’s class outside the classroom.

Arthur introduces Nan to his classmates at the start of today’s class.

Today’s guest was Omar Reyes, Assistant Director of Admissions at Rhode Island College.

Accompanying Mr Reyes were two Rhode Island College students, Olimpia Aldana and Alexa Estrada.   Today’s Life Skills hosts charged with welcoming Mr Reyes, Olimpia and Alexa were Arthur Bonga, Aaron Chy, and Isabella Caraballo to Hope High School and the Life Skills class.

Admissions Director Omar Reyes (back right) with his team prior to today’s class as Arthur Bonga (lower left white jacket), Isabella Caraballo (directly across from Arthur) and Aaron Chy (standing to the left of Director Omar Reyes).

Arthur, Aaron and Isabella introduce Director Reyes, Alexa and Olimpia to the Life Skills students to start today’s class.

Today’s guest was Vannessa Ramirez,

Hope Life Skills alum, Hope High School 2010 graduate and presently the Community Relations Chairwoman at Millennial Rhode Island and Good Fund Loan Officer.  Today’s Hope

Life Skills host was Khadiatou Njie.

Khadiatou (left) welcomes Vannessa back to Hope High School prior to the start of today’s class.

Khadiatou introduces Vannessa to her classmates at the start of today’s class

Today’s topic of conversation was about

the importance and strategy for optimizing talent;

in other words, getting the most out of our abilities and opportunities.  To do this,

we began by gathering data about each student

in a Life Skills survey.  We then

analyzed the data

we collected from each student. Next, we

made a decision about the credibility of the data.

Is the data credible?  Do we believe the data is truthful? Can we trust the data to make important decisions?

Our class discussion

transitioned to examine some of the resources available to each student to maximize their potential

in order to be the best they can be, to be the successful person each student aspires to be.

One of the resources we examined was ‘time‘,

that is, the ‘time’ each student has each day to use wisely to be the best they can be.

If we claim we have priorities in our lives, then we need to make sure we dedicate time each week to support and care for these priorities.

Today’s class was about “Brand”,

perceptions and misconceptions, the development, promotion and protection of great ones, and the confidence great brands instill.

We accomplished this with our conversation with

Abby Almonte, sophomore at Loyola University Maryland,

a 4,068 student Jesuit college in Baltimore, Maryland.

We had an opportunity to reflect on many brands today:  Loyola University Maryland, Abby Almonte, and our own.

Energy.  Passion.  Excitement.  Optimism.  Humility.  Kindness.  Trust.  Pushing out of comfort zones.  Change.  Diversity.  Empathy.  Asking questions.  Meeting new people.  Seeing new places.  Networking.  Networking.  Networking.  Building great brands and networks to open doors and create opportunities for life time success.

Hope High School junior Lucy Salado (left) and Abby Almonte prior to today’s class as Lucy welcomed Abby to our Life Skills class.

An interesting part of Lucy and Abby’s conversation before class centered on Abby’s perception of the Hope Life Skills student brand.  Abby was explaining to Lucy how impressed she was with the Hope Life Skills students who visited her high school, LaSalle Academy, her senior year. “Lucy, I couldn’t believe the Hope students had business cards! Whoa! The Hope students were so professional. I thought they really had their act together. Impressive.”