Transition class students Malena Alexander, Brian Amezcua, Evan Chang and Kevin Qin helped make posters for volunteering club Mustang Buddies, to demonstrate their teamwork and creativity and build essential real-world skills.
Mustang Buddies is a club that helps pair students with Special needs to help support each other and work together, closing the social stigma that divides them through kindness. The students helped make posters for Mustang Buddies’s kickoff event at Branding Iron, and to help apply what they’ve learned before they work in a professional setting. This not only translated into getting their IEP’s, but also to prove their ability to work well in social situations. Transition teacher Christina Lantang was pleased by this activity due to its relevance in helping develop skills the students learn in her class.
“The objective of their activity was to build on teamwork. That was to see how they would be able to plan and decide together making decisions,” Lantang said. “A lot of what we do requires peer to peer teamwork, and so that was an opportunity for the students in the transition class to be able to problem solve.”
Despite being prompted to stick to an initial theme of school spirit posters, the students were still able to plan and create them at will and help showcase their creative liberties.
“I guided them through the ideas, but they were also very involved in what they ultimately decided to put onto the poster,” Lantang said.
The process required some artistic liberties and creativity to bring the posters to life, especially in a time crunch. Fortunately, senior Malena Alexander was able to make this happen.
“I decorated [and] I liked painting it with different colors,” Alexander said.
Ultimately, the event was a success and the students were able to use their skills to collaborate with each other, and helped cheer for the football game, and support them despite their loss.
“What made it special was just the students were really excited to create these spirit posters, to come up with the names, what it should say, and to really just pour their heart into it, and then to also, then see it at the football game, for other, basically everyone to see their hard work and just school spirit,” Special Education teacher Stephanie Watkins said.
