Rotary Youth/Interact Club Members Teach BrainWise

Posted On: July 13, 2023

In 2012, Denver Mile High Rotary started an Interact/Young Rotary Club at the Career Education Center—Early College of Denver (CEC). CEC is a public high school, with a largely Hispanic population, that offers dual enrollment for college, with a variety of career paths. Stacey Hervey, Senior Team Teacher, and instructor of a criminal justice course is CEC’s Interact Sponsor with DMHR.

Stacey has been a long-time advocate for BrainWise and for 11 years has integrated the program into her two-semester curriculum. In addition to BrainWise projects.

Youth Preparation to Teach BrainWise

The 2022-2023 Interactors who chose BrainWise as their project were excited to learn more about the program. They became familiar with the 10 Wise Ways, past projects done by Interactors and others, and read papers on research outcomes.

Previous Interact projects involved teaching and reinforcing the 10 Wise Ways with students in grades K-8 using stories and games, creating classroom Brain Zones as “Stop and Think” spaces, and teaching specific lessons. Projects by others include making Braille brains for blind students, writing rap songs with BrainWise-related lyrics, and writing and performing a play that used BrainWise skills to escape an abusive relationship.

The Interactors are Rock Stars!

With their understanding, creativity, and support from Stacey, myself, and other Rotarians, the Interactors created BrainWise lessons using their favorite childhood stories.

Issue 81Interactors Present — Interactors Presenting

They also found teaching examples that used games (with and without devices) and created lessons using online learning games Kahoots and Jeopardy. They included the 10Wise Ways card set as a teaching aid—students held up a card to identify a character’s behavior in the story and shared how they would handle a similar problem in their life.

The Interactors were well-prepared and confident when they presented their materials to183 students in grades 1-8, from two schools. The children were excited and even asked for autographs! The teachers praised their teaching skills, and the Interactors expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to teach thinking skills.

In the future, a range of hybrid models can be used to support BrainWise educators, Interactors, and other volunteers wherever the program is taught.

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