Week 11: Thursday November 28th-Grad Students.

This week out class got a break from presenting to have Dr. Lewis's class of graduate students facilitate activities with us. His class was broken up into three groups who each focused on a different population and activity/program that they thought to be beneficial. The first group focused on people with ADHD participating in a program that involved a series of nature scavenger hunts. This group did a great job but growing up with ADD and having a brother with ADHD led me to question whether this activity would really have the results they were expecting. The activity was fun but I think it would be a lot more difficult than they think to facilitate this activity with this population and to get the anticipated results.

The second group was geared towards women making the transition for incarceration to homelessness. I had never heard of this as a population before but was impressed with their idea for a zumba program. I have been taking zumba classes for the past couple years and have loved every minute of it. The exercise  the company, and the music are infectious! Before we started dancing one of the members of the group gave us a brief overview of the different kinds of music and dance moves zumba includes and a very interesting history of a few moves. For example I believe she said the Cumbia is performed where one foot doesn't leave the ground because it originated in the fields in Columbia where people had an ankle chained to something or someone at all times.To me this seemed like a great activity for this population because working out gives you endorphin's that will often improve your mood and it also has the ability to improve there self esteem.

The last group focused on Wounded Warriors and how they can benefit from art activities. They chose to have us make a Mendalla which is a circle that you draw or paint in. The Mendalla is supposed to have a great deal of meaning about your current life situation. The activity was interesting and I have never heard of it before. I feel like it could be very good for some warriors who have a hard time expressing themselves vocally.