Cool Summer Programs For Teens!

The Father Strangling Community Center, in affiliation with St. Patrick’s First Church of Our Lady of the Blood-Stained Savior and Whole Sprouts! Natural Food Stores presents:

Coooooooool new teen programs for Summer!

A103. (Meets in the Spiro Agnew Room.) Learn Poetry, The Anne Sexton Way! In this class, we dive into all the fun things poetry has to offer – like over-sensitivity, isolation, despair, and eventually suicide. But along the way to sticking your head in an oven or locking yourself in the garage with the car running, there’s lots of neat metaphors and similes to try out! Cool! We’ll look at rhymin’ and writin’ through the life of that famous chick Anne, who lived in a time called the 70′s when everyone was either screwing someone else, somebody else’s shrink, or both! And people hung out in dens in suburbia and contemplated their psycho-sexual diseases. Limited to 14 – but stay on the waiting list, in case anyone "drops out."

A106. (Meets in Lancastor Park, next to the men’s room.) Support Circle. In this course, every Saturday afternoon we will form an "activity ring" like you see many teen groups do in parks, but we will be doing things a little differently. After everybody sits Indian style – er, Native-American style – we will engage in some nifty team-building and trust/confidence games like you’ve never seen! Each time we meet, one member of the group will sit in the center of the circle, and the other teens will commence to try to "break" the lucky Chosen One: that is, taunt and tease him or her on a variety of subjects we all get skittish about from time to time, like gender identity, sexuality, being "different" or "funny," hair length and/or style, face shape, weight, whiteness of teeth, prospects for the future, relationships with more successful siblings, pleasing parents, psychological issues including stuttering/eating disorders/existential dilemmas, feet shape, nose rings and their appropriateness, music and movie choices, masturbation, and political beliefs. (We might come back to masturbation if need be.) This may seem harsh at first, but based on research done by Father Strangling and Michigan State University in 1979, most teens benefit from these kinds of tough-love challenges to their fundamental core of being on a regular basis. If it comes from their peers, all the better. After the "hazing through Christ" in the center of the sacred Circle, we will discuss "what came up" and also do sing-a-longs with Mr. Timmy accompanying on guitar. Come and join the circle! Limited to 30.

B110. "Chillin’ Out" – Zen Meditation for Teens. Instructor: Whole Sprouts! Assistant Manager Rajneesh "Crunchy" Steinberg. We know that there is nothing that teens love more during the lazy, hazy days of summer than to sit completely still in a quiet room and investigate their inner beings. Who wants to be out playing lacrosse or sitting around a bonfire when you could be working in total silence on a mantra or trying to reach Nirvana? (Note: this class has nothing to do with Kurt Cobain.) Rajneesh, an experienced meditator, will be walking around the room to make sure you are not sleeping and perhaps correcting your posture in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable.

C117. The Other Face of Hope: Investigating The Infidelity of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We all know Martin Luther King was a great leader and inspiration to this country, especially for young people. He remains a beloved figure of the civil rights movement. But many teens have not been exposed to some of his other activities, like cheating on his wife in seedy hotel rooms while on the road with Ralph Abernathy. Well, this class aims to fix this. In an attempt to round out and completely humanize a towering American hero, we will look deeper into some of the lesser known facets of the man. This will be a fun voyage into the fringes of the history of our country. Essay required. We will also check out Dr. King’s smoking and drinking habits, and discuss possible plagiarism.

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