"I didn't know how to control my anger." The nonprofit uses curriculum coaches to help students thrive (2024)

It all started with one man and an idea.

Brandon Currie is from Milwaukee and has played tennis most of his life, even professionally.

He went back to school to get his master's degree and then became a guidance counselor. He also received his Ph.D. in urban education and psychology.

"We cannot change the outlook for the negative and challenges associated with poverty, mental health or incarceration. These things have broken families and communities apart," Currie said. “What we can do is say, OK, let's create really positive experiences for these kids to counteract the challenges they face.”

Currie wanted to create programs in Milwaukee schools that combined his love of education and sports. Now he does just that, with more than 30 partners serving more than 7,000 children.

Currie is the executive director of STRYV365, a nonprofit organization that works to build confidence in children by challenging them to make better decisions and build life skills.

The word "TRY" is in the middle of the organization's name. The logo shows a mountain valley and gives meaning to the idea of ​​wanting to get better every day, no matter what.

“I wanted to create curriculum and programming that would create a sense of hope, but also provide the techniques they could use when they were out in the community, at home and at school,” Currie said.

You can actually consider it like any sport. You have coaches and players. In this case, the coaches are the adults and the players are the students. And these coaches work within local schools as a resource for students.

“Kids don't really have anyone to talk to because they're afraid of judgment because of the other kids around them,” said Milwaukee Academy of Sciences eighth-grader Lariah Winston. “So when you have an adult in your life who can really see what you're going through because they've been there before, it's like having extra help.”

Winston has been part of STRYV for at least two years now.

She spends a lot of time with trainer J.P. Kiatoukaysy.

Kiatoukaysy has been working at STRYV since it started five years ago. He is one of the 12 STRYV coaches. Kiatoukaysy spends every day at the Milwaukee Academy of Science assisting the needs of faculty and students.

There is such a thing as STRYV time. Time was made available for mentoring and activities involving sports and performing arts during the students' PE lessons.

“Every day I work with these students, I feel a sense of accomplishment, like I have impacted their lives,” he said.

Like Currie, Kiatoukaysy also played tennis. He grew up in Milwaukee and can identify with many of his students.

"A lot of students in Milwaukee only know football and basketball. I like to integrate, what if you learn lacrosse? Maybe you like tennis, maybe you like volleyball. Maybe you like swimming. You never know until you get into it." exposed."

Kiatoukaysy said sports were an opportunity for him to express himself. While working within the school, he noticed a serious need for electrical outlets and safe spaces for students.

“Sometimes they are often isolated and cannot express themselves to their parents, peers or friends,” he says. “I don't want them to think I'm an educator or a teacher when we talk about school. If I could get my students to be that, man, what would coach JP do? Just let them think about it and just get them out of a difficult situation."

We visited the Milwaukee Academy of Science on a weekday morning to see it in action. One day, Kiatoukaysy and two other coaches were leading a basketball activity in the school gym.

“You can't make good decisions if you're not relaxed, right?” one of the coaches said to the students in the gym. “It's like one of the first steps in the decision-making process.

This day it was a game where staying calm, working together and critical thinking were central.

We also recorded the work done in class.

“If you miss the pictures, compliment the person you drew,” Kiatoukaysy told the students sitting at their desks. The group played a brainstorming game on their computers before playing basketball.

'He is great. He has a sense of humor,” Winston said. "He gets along very well with the children. It's not like a bad teacher, it's more like one of those coaches you can go to with all your problems. It can be outside school as well as inside school."

"He can really adapt to what you say and try to agree with you. He won't agree with everything, but he's a very nice person to be around," said Taris Eason, a student of group eight.

That's what Currie wanted. Students should be able to feel comfortable with coaches. It's really a way to be within the school and essentially separate from the typical sedentary classroom work. But more than that, practical life skills that will hopefully stay with you for years to come.

Both Currie and Kiatoukaysy know what it's like to have coaches all their lives, and it was a pleasure to become one themselves.

“A lot of people would say, are you playing what?” Currie said, describing people's reaction to his love of tennis. “Why are you playing it?”

Currie didn't see many people of color playing tennis. He was often one of the few in the room.

“It was a motivator for me to get so much better and want to compete and emphasize that no matter what you look like, where you come from. You're capable of anything.”

That's what it's all about. Whether the students are fans of sports or not, it is about life skills and life lessons in the hopes that they will become the players they know they can be, with the help of coaches who only want to see them win.

STRYV works with the education department to ensure that the curriculum includes physical and emotional learning. They all hope the organization can be a resource for every school in the state.

And one way to do that is through fundraising.

On Monday, May 20, STRYV will host a golf outing at the North Shore Country Club in Mequon.

For more information, clickher.

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