#AlwaysInBeta: True Colors Through The YouTube Eyes of High Schoolers

With my mother on her birthday

True Colors is a way to understand personality. It is something I have grown up with. My mother was a certified True Colors trainer and used it to help adults better understand their co-workers, families and friends. Needless to say, I notice people's True Colors wherever I go.

In a nutshell, True Colors works like this. There are four parts to everyone's personality. Each part is assigned a color. Green is your intellectual side. When you're being Green, you like to be alone to think, solve problems, question things and be creative. Blue is your emotional side. When you're being Blue, you're in touch with your feelings and act based on emotions. Blue is also the thoughtful, caring side of your personality.

Orange is your risk-taking side. You're being Orange when you are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. Orange is when you are having a good time, letting loose and not following a plan. Gold is your organized, responsible side. You're being Gold when you are following rules and plans, and not resting until the work is finished. Gold is when you're taking pride and concerned with your appearance.

Throughout my career as an educator, I have always looked for ways to get students to better create real-life to content connections. The parts of our personalities according to True Colors are universal to all people. This means students, regardless of background, can begin to see themselves in content. They can begin to see themes and patterns among their unique life experience and what they are learning.

This school year, I have resolved to use True Colors as a lens for students to examine events and people in US and World History. To start the year, I've given my 10th and 11th graders a crash course in True Colors. To help them better connect with and understand it, while giving me an idea of their understanding, I had students submit YouTube videos they believe are examples of each color. In addition, they had to write a short rationale explaining why.

The links below show a variety of videos my students believe are examples of each color. Feel free to use these videos to learn about True Colors and help your students and staff begin to learn as well. These videos and rationales are True Colors Through The YouTube Eyes of High Schoolers.

Blue  Gold  Green  Orange

Click here to see some student-generated True Colors Sketchnotes.