Weekly Media Roundup  March 18, 2015

Ukelele Program Strikes a Chord (San Diego Union-Tribune, California)

In Pablo Cantua’s ukulele class at Ocean Views High School, everyone is smiling, laughing and tapping their feet. It’s happiness playing out in four simple chords, three times a week for more than two dozen students in the fledgling afterschool program. After just a month of practice, the youngsters are able to strum their way through “I’m Yours” and “La Bamba.” Cantua believes having music programs in schools allows students to expand their minds into other areas. “If they can learn to learn, they can apply that to any subject,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. Principal Neil Egasani said the confidence students are building in the program is already carrying over into the classroom.

After-School Program Teaches Stock Market (Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Tennessee)

Students participating in the afterschool program at Patterson Park Community Center have five weeks to get the best return they can on $100,000 in investments. The students are playing a condensed version of the Stock Market Game, where they work in teams to invest a hypothetical $100,000 in listed stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Throughout the game, they learn the value of saving and investing as they work together to maximize the return on their portfolio. “They may not think it’s something they need to know now, or that they’re even interested in, but they’ll have a lot of fun if they embrace it,” Jerome Azbell, supervisor of the community center’s Myrtle Glandon Lord Library, told the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal.

Knitting Club Provides Refuge for Teens From High-Crime Neighborhoods (Chicago Tribune, Illinois)

Four years ago, Better Boys Foundation CEO Mary Visconti took an unconventional approach to keeping her North Lawndale students out of trouble: knitting. The communities where many of her students grow up are impoverished, and crime rates are high, but she sees knitting as a way to build community and keep kids safe. The afterschool program, KnitLAB, operates like a small business. Students are paid $325 stipends for a 10-week session to create hats, scarves, rugs and quilts. The items are sold and the money is reinvested in knitting supplies for the program. KnitLAB instructor Ana Spencer calls her students “employees” and expects them to make up any missed time, which she said instills life skills and gives them a sense of self-efficacy. In the end, the kids are proud of what they’ve produced. “The fact that I could be wearing or using something that I actually made myself is a good feeling,” 14-year-old Arteuna Dotson told the Chicago Tribune.

Columbia Police Officers Work to Build Relationships with Local Kids (ColaDaily.com, South Carolina)

“The gym at Columbia’s Hyatt Park was filled with the voices of more than a dozen young people and nearly as many police officers, but no one in the gym was in trouble with the law,” ColaDaily.com reports. During the Hyatt Park afterschool program, a joint effort by the Columbia Police Department and the South Carolina Attorney General’s office, officers joined elementary school kids in playing games to create a bond between officers and kids.  The program also aims to provide students with successful role models and teach them about leadership and respect. “These kids aren’t seeing cops,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson told ColaDaily.com. “They’re seeing mentors, coaches, and big brothers and big sisters.”