starting water at Global

I'm starting water this week over at GCHS. I'm psyched to use the WaterWars materials, but want to spend the first section establishing the concepts of water scarcity and water stress on a global scope, so I think I'll hold off on WaterWars and Ethiopia until after Winter break. Noah, did you begin the unit with Water Wars stuff, or with the Facing the Future materials (similar to those we used last year?)

Just sent an email to Water1st to arrange a visit in January. We'll be working on water for most of Junuary--might even do 2 AAS visits for this unit. We're going to our partner school once before winter break (Dec. 17 I think) to teach about water scarcity and water stress--may be doing the water carrying and the JayZ clip again like we did last year because it was so successful. My big new idea for this visit is to mandate that no one can go to AAS if they haven't proven that they understand the concepts by DOING THE WORK. It also demonstrates responsibility, to follow through with class work. Anyone who is not ready and prepared will stay behind at school to catch up while the rest of their team goes over to Bow Lake. I have an AmeriCorps teacher who can remain behind with them. The general work ethic in my class is across-the-board low, so this will be another attempt to motivate. We'll see how it goes...
--Kate H-F

Water Articles

I came across a nice article on bottled water in New Internationalist today. Here's the link.

And here's an article from the New Yorker from a a couple of years ago that takes a historical approach.

Water Update from Chief Sealth

Hey team,

I have been more or less following the curriculum for sections 1 and 2. In section 3 I used the Choices lesson plan and the Water Wars resources from Common Language Project. We focused in on water scarcity in southern Ethiopia. The kids were divided into 5 stakeholder groups: 2 ethnic groups, the Red Cross, the Ethiopian government, and the UN. Today we wrapped up our discussion by showing how all of the causes and effects of water scarcity are interconnected (climate change, poverty, agriculture-based society, erosion, drought, etc.) Then I asked the students about solutions. I've noticed that the problem of water scarcity is so big and overwhelming that many of the students feel hopeless. I reminded them of one of the themes of this class: there is no problem that cannot be solved and pushed them to think harder. We asked the questions, why don't more people know about water scarcity in the developing world? Why don't people in the United States see a connection to their lives? It was a lively discussion, although I only had about 50% participation.

Tomorrow, as a follow-up to our look at Ethiopia, someone from Water 1st International is coming to speak to the kids about their work in Ethiopia (building sustainable water infrastructure in rural communities).

Next week, I plan to look at the Colorado River (I have a PowerPoint that traces the river from its source to Mexico), which brings up privatization. I'll probably do a little mini-lesson on bottled water too. Common Language Project will most likely be coming back next Tuesday to do a workshop on the Colorado River with the kids.

By Wednesday, kids will need to be working on personal action plans and preparing for the adopt-a-school visit next Tuesday.

So, I will not get to the Ecuador simulation this time around :(

Do we have a worksheet for student action plans yet???

Update from Franklin

Thanks for the detailed posts, both Noah and Kate! It is helpful to hear about specifics regarding your GL class progress or occasional lack there-of.

Finally a week at Franklin where it felt like some real progress was made. Our first class meeting on Wednesday that addressed some "real" issues and has a generally high level of engagement from students. In particular students dialogued about the very high failure rate (1/2 the GL students are currently failing 3 or more classes)and students suggested ideas for supporting better success. I think in general they were pragmatic suggestions and at least partially in-line with some of the approached prescribed by the GL model.

Thursday was the first AAS visit to John Muir and was highly successful in terms of motivating the students. The typically least cooperative students were the most on task, leading activities and smooth transitions. I was in shock! So much for going down in ball of flames like I expected... Looking forward to a more content rich visit at the end of the water unit. In short, Obama is not the only reason to have hope at FHS.

Global Awareness Unit

So I've morphed some election discussion and online voting with the Global Trivia/product trail/needs-wants/red-green game activities, plus showing the Go! documentary about child soldiers in Uganda, to make a unit I'm calling 'Global Awareness.' In 2 weeks we'll go back to our AAS class, and I'm excited to see which activities they choose to do and what content will emerge as that which they deem most important. Water will begin at the end of November.


Class meetings are touch and go--one week they crash and burn, the next week (like this one) they are more student-run with important discussion and some lightness and laughter. Today we switched up class jobs, and it felt like there was some growing ownership over the class in general--something that's been concerning me.

Never got around to the Socratic Seminar on Machiavelli, but I"m going to keep the materials hanging around for later in the year.

So that's what we're up to over here at Global Connections.
--Kate H-F

Homework Announcer

The student whose class job it is has been struggling to EXPLAIN the homework to the class rather than just read it. Tomorrow I am going to give her typed directions that should hopefully help:

Explain to the class that they need to bring an empty plastic gallon jug on Monday. They will need it in class on Tuesday. They should NOT go out and buy a new jug just for this assignment. Encourage them to ask their teachers or neighbors for a jug if they can’t find one at home. Tell them “do not forget to bring your jug.”

Putting it in 3rd person should hopefully help. Here is my little reminder handout.

-Noah

Great Class Today

After a mediocre, way-too-teacher-centered class meeting yesterday, I felt pretty good about how class went today. Due to a few students being gone for a field trip today (they left halfway through class) I moved RED-GREEN to tomorrow and cancelled office hours for this week.

Today, we caught up with product trail. We traced the trail of coffee (black: no cream or sugar) from trees in Colombia to a Seattle home. The kids did a great job naming social and environmental costs and other resources that were used in the process. Then, we talked about action steps to reduce these costs (buy organic, fair trade, shade-grown, etc.) We then defined ecological footprint and one student volunteered to let us use her consumption data for an online footprint calculator. This particular website was a lot of fun (very visual). 4.9 earths would be needed to sustain her lifestyle. We finished class by having the students try to trace the product trail of either a hamburger, fries, or cola (I gave them the FTF handout from page 74 of Engaging Students Through Global Issues to use as a guide).

Today, all but 2 or 3 students were engaged for the whole period. I have to work with those 2 or 3 kids on ways to keep them active. Calling on them was not enough today (heads down, tuned out).

Group Problem Solving

I have been meaning to post about what we did in my GL class when two of the CLP groups were not functioning. Each group had two girls who were not getting along.

With Fontana's guidance and support, I led a class meeting on 9/24. Here are my notes:

I said in my intro that there is at least one group that is not functioning right now.

T spoke first about how she was unable to work with her group yesterday because they chose a leader that one of them personally knows and there is no way to research her online. This was not the group I had planned to address.

K responded by saying you shouldn't blame one person in the group for disfunction - it's a group responsibility.

N reminded us that this is the first time that we are discussing something like this so it's okay if we mess up a little.

T said that in GL we are supposed to make decisions together. Some people like to take over. Please tell me if I do it.

C: head down on desk.

R: I want to work alone because I don't get along with someone (K) in my group. (This is the group I had intended to focus on).

K: Can't we just switch groups? Wouldn't that be easier?

V: That's the whole point. Companies who hire us in the future want us to be able to work with others who we don't get along with.

N: Maybe this is like the 4 directions activity. They are 2 very different types of leaders.

T: I just need something to DO in my group. (C, the girl who took charge yesterday, was absent today).

Zeichner: I want to encourage the class to address these issues and to try to propose constructive solutions. I'm going to ask that those people directly involved in these 2 conflicts listen deeply.

For the most part, the discussion was respectful, but having 2 issues to deal with made it difficult to reach closure.

We continued our meeting on the following day. I led the class through the following:

3 minutes: write down a solution for each of the two groups
6 minutes: in a committee of 4-5, present your solutions and choose 1 for each group per committee.
6 minutes: each committee shares solutions. Then the whole class votes.

We almost kept the process to 15 minutes. The class chose solutions: group A had to take a vote in their group about which leader they wanted to study and must be open to switching. Group B had to basically suck it up and work together.

The class was told that I would be grading them on PROCESS (the class meeting), PRODUCT (their solutions), and EXECUTION (how things turn out). It would be worth 60 points.

Group A did not work things out. One girl simply refused to work with her group. Soon after, she was suspended from school and missed almost 2 weeks. Group B changed leaders, but the 2 girls still had trouble. But in the end, group B pulled it together.

Low grades on the problem-solving process and the CLP presentations brought students' grade down significantly, so I offered them this document and asked them to comment on it:

Community Leaders Project
Teacher’s notes and student feedback

Objectives
The Community Leaders Project (CLP) was designed to provide Global Leadership (GL) students with an opportunity to work together as a group and to gain experience in presenting in front of the class before they go on their first adopt-a-school visit. The CLP also aimed to allow the students a chance to enhance and solidify their understanding of critical leadership qualities and to apply their knowledge to proven leaders around the world.

Results
Results in GL at Chief Sealth were mixed for the following reasons:

Two groups had personal conflicts between group members. This allowed for an intensive class-wide problem-solving experience, but in the end, the issues were not resolved.

Students needed more support with research and presentation skills. The presentations did not all focus on leadership qualities. Overall, too much time was spent on the biographical details of the subjects.

Changes
Suggestions for next semester:

Have students do preliminary research on local and global leaders, but do not have them do the research project. Students can still complete the profile, but instead of the group project, they can create a one-page flier that highlights their subject’s leadership qualities. Profiles can be shared in groups and/or in a gallery walk during class.

To replace the research/presentation component, students will do a different, shorter group project before the first adopt-a-school visit. They will come up with a short skit based on the concepts of product trail and wants/needs that teaches the class something new. We can use more of the product trail chapters from the book Stuff. The concept of leadership could be incorporated into this project by requiring the groups to exhibit leadership qualities in their acting (each character would choose one). This could probably be done with one day of preparation and one day of presentations/discussion.

Grade accommodations
Many students’ grades were negatively affected by both the problem-solving process and by the presentation itself. More specifically, every student who had an A in the class, dropped to a B. The CLP grades are in the Projects/A-A-S category in the gradebook.

As an effort to help students elevate their grades, I am proposing that if our first adopt-a-school visit goes well and all groups do a good job, we adjust the total number of points for the CLP grades. Problem-solving would drop to 30 and the presentation would drop to 25 points. Because each A-A-S visit is worth 100 points, a high grade on Friday, October 13th should raise all students’ grades significantly.

At this point, I am just excited to move on. This week we will finally get to red/green, needs/wants, and product trail. And next week: WATER!

Adopt a School

Al, My apologies for a delayed response.

The first Adopt a School visit is a lot about intros, community and rapport building. Ideally, by the time you go, your students have completed the Community Leaders Project, have done Red/Green, Needs/Wants and Product Trail--even if you haven't gotten there, I suggest you to try to get them in to their AAS because it's a huge component of the class and once they have visited it serves as a necessary point of reference. So when the curriculum says "do what you want" for that visit, the students should be discussing in the class meeting what they want to start the year teaching the elementary students (it's ok if this is primarily the games that your students did as icebreakers through the first weeks of school). The diversity/identity lesson plan was what Noah and Kate used last year because Unit one was slightly different and that seemed a good way to start with them, it's included this year in case you feel you need more structure for that first visit--it's just an option.

The first visit will be challenging and very likely will not go super smoothly (our first one at Cleveland was a mess but that was awesome because the students came back wanting to improve it) but we encourage you to let them struggle through it (communicating with your cooperating teacher that visits will only improve) so that they as a class can come back to the drawing board.

Update from Chief Sealth

Hi everyone. Sorry I've been out of touch. I was out of town Thursday night to Monday night and have been trying to catch up today.

• Al, I'll post a comment on your a-a-s question soon. We have our first visit scheduled for Friday, 10/17.
• I also plan to document some problem-solving that my class has gone through during the CLP. It has been a wild ride.
• We had the Common Language Project (Water Wars) in class today. It was a great presentation, but would have been much more engaging if the kids had already started studying water. I plan to invite them back later on.
• I picked up a great new resource in the airport last weekend: a new magazine put out by Scientific American called Earth 3.0. Here's a link to an article on how the energy and water crises are codependent. It was kind of a duh moment for me when I read it, but definitely a link that has not been discussed in the media.

AAS Visit #1 suggestions

Noah -- I would also appreciate any suggestions for the first AAS visit. I was thinking these visits were intended to have the teens reteach the core learnings to the younger students. This doesn't seem to be encouraged in the unit guide; it seems too open ended with "what do you want to do" being the main prompt, along with a 3 hour sample lesson on diversity.

We were planning on visiting the second week of October, but may put this off until the week after next, i.e. the third week.

Yes, the water first folks are scheduled to come in this thursday. Not an ideal sequence, but this is when they were available.

Election

Just a reminder that the Vice Presidential Debate is Thursday evening.
Might make for a good homework or extra credit assignment.

Students could do a quick writing activity on Friday morning in response to the debate, followed by a discussion. Just as an opening activity.

Checking In

Hello All,

Kate, glad to hear you have nailed down a date for the first AAS visit. Noah and Al, do you have visits scheduled?

Also, we're finalizing the Water Unit and I just wanted to check with you all and see if you envision being able to do Red/Green before you start the water unit?

And finally, just want to see if an honorarium will be possible from your budgets to have Common Language Project visit your classes towards the end of the water unit. I think they're doing work that works really well with the work the students are doing. Noah, I know you have Water First scheduled to come in, I'm wondering if Kate and Al, you might be interested in Common Language for a class visit?

They're getting booked up quickly, though.

thanks all!

AAS plans from Kate

Good news! I met with Brett MacDonald at Bow Lake Elementary school on Friday afternoon, and it looks like his 6th grade class will be our AAS partner. We're planning on our first visit being Wednesday October 8. The fact that this is a 6th grade class in our district is particularly relevant, since all 6th graders in our district go to a week of experiential envioronmental education out at Camp Waskowitz in North Bend, which is led by high school aged students. Brett pointed out how the curriculum and the experience of working with teenage leaders will really align well with GL.

Noah, what are your thoughts about your first AAS visit? I remember last year that my group emphasized getting to know you type activities, playing name games and using warm ups from class. But I'm also wanting to incorporate the Social Justice Leaders project my students are just finishing up...anyone have suggestions for how we might do this within the 1 hour time frame, with 6th graders?
--Kate

Chris' response to Noah's question

Let the wisdom of the class work it out—keeping in mind, you must be a VERY strong leader guiding the conversation, setting a couple ground rules and not letting it go (the conversation) too long. Use it as “an experiment in democracy—we’ll try this for this one time –and since the solution comes from the kids, it will have given the democratic process credence. But, if you let them divide, that is a missed opportunity to “put everyone in the same boat”. See the Dreikurs chapter on this in Children the Challenge. Do you have that book yet? Get it!!! Great reference as we discuss issues like this all year.

Group Skills

I put the kids in groups for their CLP and there was really only one conflict that arose. There are two girls who may have difficulty working together in the same group. I spoke with one of them privately who claims that the other student does not respect her and she is not the type of person who forgives people who don't respect her. I listened to her vent and I said that this issue might really be a class issue - we all need to be able to work with everyone in the class for GL to be successful. Does anyone have any suggestions how to work with these 2 girls, both of whom have very strong personalities? I don't plan to switch the groups around at this point because that defeats the spirit of GL. Tomorrow is a work day and I want them to be productive.

I want to figure out how to deal with this in the "GL way." My first thought is to just remind the class that it's a group grade for this project and hope that they'll make it work so that their other 3 group members are not at a disadvantage.

Thanks.

socratic seminar

Please provide details if you pursue the seminar and Machiavelli, Kate. Definitely difficult to imagine working in additional content at this point, but my dep't mates would like to see the kids reading excerpts from The Prince and the building is asking for more seminars; my other classes are ahead of the GL kids on both these fronts.

Water 1st

Check out Water 1st's cool new promo video. They came to speak in my GL class last year and did an exceptional job with the kids.

Portfolios

How are portfolios going for people? To be honest, we haven't done much with them in our class yet. I plan to really get them rolling next week. I looked through the binder quickly for entry forms. Are they in there?

previous post 'update' was from Kate H-F

Woops, I'm still getting the hang of this!

update

Thanks, Al and Noah for the list and great links.

My class started a version of the CLP projec this week, though progress has been slow (due to low HW turnout and the funeral and memorial service for the student who was killed in a motorcycle accident last week, and who was part of our class for the first 3 days of school. It's been a rough beginning of the school year at GCHS, but it's also brought us together as a community in some important ways).

I could use some clarification about the transition from the leadership topic to consumption/product trail/coffee readings etc. in the later half of this unit.

I want to include a Socratic Seminar discussion on leadership based around "The Prince" by Machiavelli that I also did last year in this class, and I think this could be a great wrap-up to the unit. Also, haven't set up our Adopt a School partnership for this year yet, since last year's partner has passed it along to another teacher she recommended but who hasn't replied to my emails yet (I'll be calling him by the end of this week). With class jobs, portfolio, class meetings, and this project, my students are very busy and we're just getting into the swing of things, so it's a busy time. I heard from a colleague that one students in my class told her that it's his favorite class--he likes taking notes for the group during class meetings, and he said he likes the structure and format, he's learning important things. What great feedback!

New Resources

I was listening to the Tavis Smiley Show on NPR last weekend and heard some youth speak who participated in Smiley's Youth Leadership Institute recently. Here's the audio link: http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/zen/TSR/guests08/091208/LeadershipYouth_FREEprev.php

A group called Youth Venture is coming to table at our school tomorrow: http://www.genv.net/ They work with students to develop and fund action plans. I see a huge potential to partner with them. GL students who are driven to take their ideas further and start clubs or organizations can get $1000 to get started. They do workshops on writing action plans, etc. but I think we will cover most of that in our classes. I'm going to meet with Alan from YV tomorrow and I hope to invite him into my class to speak when we start working on our first action plans.

Relevant Links

http://www.idealist.org/kt/youthorgs.html

this lists organizations started by youth!!!

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/world/africa/the-secret-lives-of-forests/

this is a possible leader to profile (directly related to water)

CLP Directions

I am not seeing any actual student directions for the CLP. Anyone have any typed that they care to share?

Leadership Profiles

Nice sample presentation, Noah!

Here is the list of lesser-known, i.e. not commonly researched by middle/high schoolers, community leaders that I am providing for students who are having trouble coming up with their own cl to profile. Off to the library tomorrow...

Community Leaders Project

The following are persons who qualify as community leaders for the purpose of our project. This is not a complete list. You are encouraged to profile a person who is not included in this list. Any individual who affects positive change within a community qualifies as a “community leader.” Please get teacher approval for your selection, even if they are included on this list.

Addams, Jane (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a founder of the U.S. Settlement House movement, and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Allende, Salvador (June 26, 1908 – September 11, 1973) was President of Chile from November 1970 until his death during the coup d'état of September 11, 1973.

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand (born July 15, 1953) is a former Roman Catholic priest who was President of Haiti in 1991, again from 1994 to 1996, and then from 2001 to 2004. Aristide was the first democratically elected leader of Haiti and was popular among its poor inhabitants.

Ashe, Arthur (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was a prominent African American tennis player who was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia.

Baker, Ella (December 13, 1903 - December 13, 1986) was a leading African American civil rights and human rights activist beginning in the 1930s. She was a behind-the-scenes activist whose career spanned over five decades. She worked alongside some of the most famous civil rights leaders of the twentieth century, including: W.E.B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored such then young civil rights stalwarts as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael and Bob Moses.

Clemente, Roberto Walker (August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a professional baseball player and a Major League Baseball right fielder.

Commoner, Barry (born May 28, 1917): an American biologist, college professor, and eco-socialist. He ran for president of the United States in the 1980 U.S. presidential election on the Citizens Party ticket.

Davis, Angela (born, January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American political activist and university professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

El Saadawi, Nawal (Arabic: نوال السعداوى) (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist and physician.

Fanon, Frantz (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and author from Martinique.

Fox, Michael J. (born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961) is a Canadian/American film and television actor.

Fox, Terry CC (July 28, 1958 – June 28, 1981) was a Canadian humanitarian, athlete, and cancer treatment activist.

Freire, Paulo (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 – São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and is an influential theorist of education.

Fry, Elizabeth (née Gurney; 21 May 1780 – 12 October 1845) was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist.

Gibbs, Lois (born 1952) is an American environmental activist.

Guevara, Ernesto “Che” (June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che, or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, politician, author, physician, military theorist, and guerrilla leader.

Hayden, Tom (born December 11, 1939) is an American social and political activist and politician, most famous for his involvement in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Hill, Joe born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and also known as Joseph Hillström (October 7, 1879[1] or 1882[2] – November 19, 1915) was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, also known as the Wobblies).

Hoffman, Abbie (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies").

Ireland, Patricia (born October 19, 1945 in Oak Park, Illinois) is a U.S. administrator and feminist. She served as president of the National Organization for Women, from 1991 to 2001 and published an autobiography, What Women Want, in 1996.

Jackson, Jesse (born October 8, 1941) is an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as "shadow senator" for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997.

Jones, Mary Harris “Mother” (May 1, 1830 or August 1, 1837 – November 30, 1930), better known as Mother Jones, born in Cork, Ireland, was a prominent American labor and community organizer, a Wobbly, and a Socialist.

Kelley, Florence (September 12, 1859 – February 17, 1932) was a social and political reformer from Philadelphia. Her work with children's rights is widely regarded today.

Kyi, Aung San Suu (Burmese, born 19 June 1945) in Rangoon, is a pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, and a noted prisoner of conscience and advocate of nonviolent resistance.

LaDuke, Winona (born 1959) is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for election to the office of Vice President of the United States as the nominee of the United States Green Party, on the ticket headed by Ralph Nader.

Langer, Felicia (born 1930) is an Israeli human rights attorney known for her defense of Palestinians charged with political violations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. She has also authored numerous books alleging human rights violations on the part of Israeli occupation authorities.

Lee, Barbara (born July 16, 1946), is an American politician, and has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1998, representing California's 9th congressional district (map). She is the first woman to represent that district. Lee is the First Vice-Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Lee is notable as the only person in either chamber of Congress who voted against the authorization of use of force following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Luke, Wing (1925-1965) was Assistant Attorney General of Washington state in the Civil Rights Division from 1957 to 1962, and a member of the Seattle City Council from March 13, 1962, to his death in 1965. He was the first Asian American to hold elected office in the state.

Machel, Samora (September 29, 1933 – October 19, 1986) was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President of Mozambique. Machel led the country to independence in 1975 until his death in 1986, when his presidential aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain where the borders of Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa converge.

McCloud, Janet (born May 8, 1958) is a British designer, writer and television presenter. He is best known for his work on the Channel 4 series Grand Designs. Kevin lives in Somerset with his wife Suzanna and their four children.

Menchu, Rigoberta (b. 9 January 1959, Chimel, Quiché, Guatemala) is an indigenous Guatemalan, of the Quiché-Maya ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and to promoting indigenous rights in the country. She was the recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize and Prince of Asturias Award in 1998. Menchú is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Muhammad, Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942) is a retired American boxer and former three-time World Heavyweight Champion.

Nader, Ralph (born February 27, 1934) is an American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist, and independent candidate for President of the United States in five elections, including the current election, with his role in the 2000 election in particular being subject to much debate. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer rights, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government. Nader is both the first Arab American and Lebanese American presidential candidate in the U.S.

Nasrin, Taslima also spelled Taslima Nasreen and popularly referred to as 'Taslima', her first name, rather than 'Nasreen' (born 25 August 1962 in Mymensingh, East Pakistan) is a Bengali Bangladeshi ex-physician turned feminist author who describes herself as a secular humanist.

Ngau, Harrison is an defender of Borneo’s threatened ancient forests.

Nkrumah, Kwame (September 21, 1909 - April 27, 1972)[1], was an influential 20th century advocate of Pan-Africanism, and the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966.

Obama, Barack (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 general election.

Owens, Jesse (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay team.

Palermo, Steve (born October 9, 1949 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is a former umpire in Major League Baseball who worked in the American League from 1977 to 1991. His field career ended when he was shot in the back following his intervention in an altercation outside Campisi's, a Dallas Italian restaurant. He wore uniform number 14 when the American League began using uniform numbers for its umpires in 1980.

Paul, Alice (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist leader. Along with Lucy Burns (a close friend) and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

Pelosi, Nancy (born March 26, 1940) is the current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Before being elected Speaker in the 110th Congress, she was the House Minority Leader from 2002 to 2007, holding the post during the 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses.

Randall, Margaret is a feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist. Born in New York City in 1936, she has lived for extended periods in Albuquerque, New York, Seville, Mexico City, Havana, and Managua.

Randolph, A. Philip (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent twentieth century African-American civil rights leader and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which was a huge achievement for labor and especially for African-American labor organizing.

Reed, John (October 22, 1887 – October 19, 1920) was an American journalist, poet, and communist activist, famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World. He was the husband of the writer and feminist Louise Bryant.

Richardson, Gloria (born May 6, 1922) is best-known as the leader of the Cambridge Movement, a civil rights struggle in Cambridge, Maryland in the 1960s. The Movement made significant strides against institutionalized racial discrimination in Cambridge by bringing attention to social injustices such as inadequate wages, poor housing, and poor health care.

Robeson, Paul (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was a multi-lingual American actor, athlete, Basso cantante concert singer, writer, civil rights activist, fellow traveler, Spingarn Medal winner, and Lenin Peace Prize laureate.

Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson (1912-1992) was a civil rights activist and educator in Montgomery, Alabama. Born near Culloden, Georgia, she was the youngest of twelve children.

Romero, Oscar (August 15, 1917 – March 24, 1980), commonly known as Monseñor Romero, was a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador who was killed in 1980 for defending human rights. He became the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, succeeding Luis Chávez.

Sandino, Augusto Cesar (May 18, 1895 – February 21, 1934) was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion against the U.S. military presence in Nicaragua between 1927 and 1933.

Savio, Mario (December 8, 1942 – November 6, 1996) was an American political activist and a key member in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. He is most famous for his passionate speeches, especially his "place your bodies upon the gears" address given at Sproul Hall, University of California, Berkeley on December 2, 1964.

Shuttlesworth, Fred (born Freddie Lee Robinson on March 18, 1922) is a civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He continues to work against racism and for alleviation of the problems of the homeless in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he took up a pastorate in 1961.

Trudell, John (born February 15, 1946) is an American author, poet, musician, and former political activist.

Washinawatok, Ingrid (also known as O'Peqtaw-Metamoh and Flying Eagle Woman) (July 31, 1957- February 1999) was an internationally-known member of the Menominee Nation of upper Wisconsin. She was murdered by FARC guerrillas in Colombia. At the time of her death she was forty-one years old, a wife and mother of a 14-year-old son.

Williams, Robert F. (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was a civil rights leader, author, and the president of the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP chapter in the 1950s and early 1960s. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting both integration and armed Black self-defense in the United States.

Wu, Harry (born 1937; Wu Hongda) is an activist for human rights in the People's Republic of China. Now a resident and citizen of the United States, Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, for which he popularized the term laogai. In 1996 the Columbia Human Rights Law Review awarded Wu its second Award for Leadership in Human Rights. [

Zapata, Emilio (August 8, 1879–April 10, 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South.

Zorich, Chris (born March 13, 1969 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former American football defensive tackle in the National Football League for the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins.

Model Presentation

I did my model presentation today on Nicholas Kristof, the NYT reporter. I highlighted 3 leadership qualities and talked about some of the specific work he has done that has impressed me. I made a short PowerPoint presentation and went over the rubric before I started. I thought it was going to be 5 minutes, but it turned into a 9-minute presentation. We ran out of time at the end and the kids turned in their comments - we'll come back to it soon.

I decided to include a couple of delicate issues to gauge their maturity level at this point in the year (rape in Sudan and child sex slavery in Cambodia). A couple of kids had some trouble, but the majority of the class did just fine.

I think I need to think about the transition from individual to group projects so that all of the kids feel like their initial research is validated. We're going to the library on Thursday (GV tomorrow, class meeting Wednesday) for some computer research time. I'd like to have them all in groups by Friday if possible.

Here's a link to my Powerpoint

FLOW

Hello again. We had office hours today. It was a little chaotic trying to get everyone up to par with class jobs. I still have 3 students who need class jobs and I don't think I can expand anymore of the existing ones. So I'm going to think this weekend about creating 1 or 2 new jobs. One might be to keep our New/Noticias bulletin board up to date.

We went over the CLP assignment and rubric. On Monday or Tuesday I hope to be able to take them to the library to do some research. I plan to put together my model presentation over the weekend. I am thinking about profiling Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times.

I have been posting a lot lately. I know that this blog is intended mostly for reflection on our classes, but is it okay to post about resources that we find too? Or is there a better way to file them on the blog? I think the tagging (adding labels) should help us stay organized if we continue to post resources.

On my way to school today I was listening to Democracy Now and the people who made the new film FLOW were on. I would love to find a copy if they are available. Here's a link to the interview. You can download the audio from the website and both the audio and video through itunes. The film opens at Varsity Theater in the U-District on November 7th. Could be a fun field trip.

Leadership and the Next Presidency

I'm finding that this blog is a good place to jot down ideas that pop into my head about GL.

Thanks for the Election ideas. Here's a resource that I came across today: http://howyoulead.org/

The Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership has come up with 15 questions to ask the 2 candidates about their leadership. It might be an interesting activity to ask our GL students what questions they would ask Obama and McCain to help them understand how they would lead.

From CPL President Andy Zelleke:

Few would question that leadership competence is an essential ingredient in a successful presidency. Candidates know this, routinely trumpeting their leadership prowess in commercials and bumper stickers. But campaigns rarely provide voters with the depth and quality of information about the candidates that they need to assess how much “there” there is beneath the self-serving slogans, and to judge—between two capable leaders—which candidate’s leadership would better fit the challenges of the day and those still unknown that will emerge.

Voters need a clear sense of the candidates’ inner core, and how they have dealt with and learned from their personal and professional challenges. Voters should also better understand the candidates’ visions of where they want to lead the nation, and how they will do the actual work of leading—inspiring, communicating, building high-performing teams, forming coalitions, making decisions, getting difficult things done against predictable resistance—if elected.

*****

I also came across these leader profiles today on the same website. There are a couple of them that I might consider using.

Bottled Water video and Cool School Challenge

I saw this video on the news tonight. I plan on using it in the water unit. It talks about how most commercial bottled water is just tap water and is actually less regulated than most municipal tap water systems. I have been looking for a short little clip on this topic - my 5 minutes of tv viewing paid off today!

Also, last year my GL kids started a school-wide audit of carbon emissions at the end of the semester. We used materials from PSE's Cool School Challenge. They seem to have enhanced their materials over the summer - I would encourage us all to take a look.

Good meeting today

Thanks for all of the clarification Cat. I think most groups will be able to handle a 5 minute presentation. That gives each participant 1-2 minutes to talk.

I thought our class meeting went well today. We talked about a few quick items like the bathroom pass policy, cell phones, attendance (I updated them on the current total number of absences), and attention for speakers. The kids decided that it was obvious that cell phones should be turned off and put away and suggested that we build it into one of the class jobs that someone remind the class from time to time, especially before important discussions or events.

The kids are really into the whole concept of class jobs from the start, much more so than last year. Now I need to follow through and make sure they all know what to do. I'm glad that we have office hours now to do that.

I asked the students how we should approach choosing the jobs and we decided to go through the list and all interested people raise their hand. There are about 5 or 6 students who did not raise hands so I am going to take the list of unclaimed jobs and let them choose (or most likely I'll ask another student to approach them). I don't think I am going to change jobs monthly, but I will do it quarterly. My mind could be changed on that though. I may ask the students what they think.

I expanded the voter registration job to include mock election coordinator. One of our students is in ASB and has already said that ASB would partner with GL to put the whole thing together.

To answer Cat's other question, icebreakers are going great. I probably will slow down a little now, though. We played the name toss today and we even got a second ball going.

Tomorrow we'll do the 4 directions activity and introduce the CLP a little. The students have mentioned also that they would like to do more with the self-intros, so we may do another round of the fish bowl or partner introductions.

Wednesday 9/10

Hello All--

Going to do my best to respond to everything, apologies for a long post:

First: try not to worry too much about being behind. Remember that we discussed not trying to cover everything, we will be cutting stuff periodically throughout the semester. I hear you, Noah, on wanting to fit in and be planning for Adopt a School and you're totally on with that, but if the lessons are too full, let's shorten them. Feel free to call me at night if you want to talk out what to cut.

In the interest of time

Let's cut out the portfolio decoration, have students label their binder or folder for the portfolio, inform them we will spend time decorating them at the end of the semester when their portfolio's contents really represent themselves and they can have a better idea of how to decorate it accordingly.

How are the icebreakers working for you guys? They're written in almost every day for several weeks. Feel free to cut them back and let's shoot for 2 a week. Every day is not necessary once the general tone of the class has been set which you have already been doing together.

Election Stuff

How do you all feel about doing something election related for the first AAS visit?
We're going through the curriculum links that Noah sent to pull some stuff out, maybe we can find something to modify for the elementary students. We'll see if FTF has anything too.
I REALLY like the podcast idea AND the idea of having Ss look at 2-3 issues and comparing candidates' stances. that's a great way to set them up for debate and have concrete info to refer back to.
To be honest, I think the meat of relating the electionfor our GL class is focusing on looking at them for ideas about leadership, but the specificities of their platforms are good for debate practice.

Initial election ideas:

• Choose three qualities of a leader from our class list and see if one of the candidates demonstrates those qualities--assign this as homework, then discuss in class the following day. Ss must be able to support their comments with concrete evidence
• Which direction from the Celtic wheel does the candidate fall today?
• Where does the latest ad that you’ve seen for a candidate fall on the wheel today?
• What qualities does your leader have (from your CLP) that you’d like to see in your president?
• Youtube videos of an ad or a snippet of the candidate as openers to class, brief discussion instead of opening with an icebreaker game.
  
• Action Plan: have Ss register people to vote. this would have to be done this month because the cut off in Washington State is 30 days prior to election. (http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/voterregistration/voterregistrationforms/MI-VRCard.pdf)
  

CLP response:

• oral presentation 5-7 minutes. sorry for confusion
• size of groups 3-4 people
• choosing a leader: local, global, historical, all great!
• leadership wheel: yes!! if you guys can get it in as an activity this week or next it will be a great reference, especially for discussion on the election.
• model presentation: what if you profile a student--maybe a GV participant from last year who you could use as a youth leader and do a brief presentation on them. less work for you: ask the GV participant to write up a brief bio of themselves after looking at the CLP outline. What do you think of that?
  

Class Meeting:

• how did the cel phone discussion go?
• agreed with respecting guest speakers: how did that go?
  
• confused on spider incident...was the quiz that you gave directly related to the spider incident? was it a consequence to the action taken by those students? sorry, not quite following you on that. Maybe you've already addressed it in class meeting? I understand not wanting to let that go unaddressed.

Strongly encourage you all to use debate cards for upcoming discussions to allow folks the opportunity to step up and step back this is in your binder with more info:

Because debates and discussions tend to be dominated by Ss who are comfortable speaking in public, the Global Leadership Class uses a “stacking” method for debates/discussions. This means that the moderator of the discussion or debate keeps track of the order in which Ss will speak. Ss each receive 3 name cards one of which they will turn in every time they speak so that each Ss must speak at least 3 times and only 3 times. Once a Ss is out of cards, that Ss may no longer speak in the discussion. The moderator will keep track of the hands that are raised to speak and keep a visible running list for the class of who will speak next. This is the debate or discussion “stack.”

If you want anything mentioned above to be hashed out further let us know.

Rock on GL teachers!

Election Ideas

My public service academy seniors will be running a mock building wide election in connection with http://youthleadership.net; I assume Noah is doing this as well, as he did in 2004. Not necessarily deep, but it does force some conversations. The GL students won't be running the election, but we may require the seniors to present to the younger students in some debate capacity.

I used podcasts from Charles Gibson for all of the main candidates in the primaries last year. Cat's ideas has me thinking these would work great in relation to initiating the leadership quality analysis. The podcasts are super short, 6 minutes each? Sarah Palin should be available this week.
Pairing this with a concise reading would roundout a nice 1 day lesson plan for each candidate (2 days total). Any concise, accessible reading floating around out there? The recent intereviews in TIME may suffice.

SJ and EJ

When I read through my students' GL interviews, I was astounded by how much they left blank. Most students freely admitted that they did not understand the concepts of social and environmental justice. We worked through each of them, but in the end, ran out of time before we could arrive at a satisfying student-generated definition. We'll need to come back to this. In the meantime, I'm encouraging some of the kids to finish their GL interviews (I will raise their score when they do). I think it would also be beneficial to go back to these interviews at the end of the semester as part of the portfolio process to reflect on how their views might have changed.

I still have some thinking to do before tomorrow's class meeting. It seems like there is so much to do. I plan to distribute class jobs. I also would like to discuss attendance and revisit the class norms. There are also a couple of small issues like cell phones (they have been ringing in class) and attention during guest speakers (One World Now was in class for a few minutes today and we didn't have 100% eyes on the speakers.) I want to set a high standard for future guest speakers and for class presentations.

On a side note, today in class while we were doing the name slap game, a student spotted a spider on the floor. Quickly, another student shouted "kill it" and a third student stomped it to death. Wow, definitely not a GL-type action. I plan to address it briefly tomorrow at the class meeting: was everyone comfortable with the way the class handled that situation? On one hand, I don't want to make a big deal about this. But I also don't just want to drop it. The way I reacted today was to have them all sit down and take a name quiz individually (instead of the fun class quiz that I was planning to do). They had to list as many names as they could in the class and I would divide the total number of names by the total number of students in class to get an average total on which I will base their class grade.

I'm feeling a little tentative about diving into the Community Leaders project this week. In our temporary site we only have one computer lab right now and it is not easy to reserve. I'm also weighing how to approach the project. Like Kate's classes, my students will need a lot of guidance with the research. I don't want to rush them through a project without making sure that they have the skills to do a solid job. There seems to be a lot of scaffolding for the oral presentation, but not as much time dedicated to the actual research. Also, a few questions/thoughts came up while I was reading through the lessons again tonight:

• What is the ideal length of the oral presentation? 3-5, 5-7, 0r 7-10 minutes? There are references to all three time limits in the curriculum.
• Did we decide on a size for the groups? I'm thinking 3-4.
  
• I think that some students will want to choose local community leaders, maybe even people they know. And some will prefer to take a more historical or even global approach. I think both ways are fine, as long as they focus on what it means to be a leader.
• I like Kate's idea of doing the 4 directions activity before starting the project. I think I'll try it on Thursday.
• Can we talk a little more about the model presentation on day 8? (maybe we can collaborate on coming up with a subject).
  

I really like the idea of looking at the election, maybe at the candidates' stances on environmental issues/energy. The difficulty is that the students don't have the background from the water and energy units yet. And if we wait until after water, the election will pass us by. If we weave the election into the community leaders project, students could look at 3 issues (environment, energy, and one of their choice) and compare the candidates' stances on them. Then we could use this information for our first official class debate, as Cat suggested.

I'm feeling the need to make a calendar. I'm already behind on the leader project and I haven't done anything with portfolios. I want to make sure that we are on track to make the first visit by the 1st or 2nd week of October.

I think that's all for now.

Election 2008

Hi Guys,

Al--thanks for the comments, really great to hear your enthusiasm.

Just wanted to bring up the Election. Noah mentioned it briefly at the training and we didn't have a chance to get more in depth. I think it's too important an issue to not address in the GL class. I'm still thinking about what it can look like in your classes. I think it's a great opportunity to debate and practice the use of debate cards (written up in your binder How To for teachers under debates). But I think it's also a great way to tie in Leadership. Regardless of who Ss are looking at as their candidate of choice, I think it's a great way for Ss to look at the running lists in your classrooms of leadership qualities and see how the two candidates measure up as leaders. Maybe the debate is not about Who Should be President, but Who Makes the Strongest Leader? (and why).

Those are my initial thoughts. I would say push the Community Leaders Project back some if necessary in order to make space for the Election.

What do you all think? How soon can you realistically start looking at the election and what materials do you need from our end? I'm going to start searching for election based curriculum for high school students.

First post from FHS

Al at Franklin here-

The calendar is a nice addition. We require our students within the PSA (Public Service Academy) to attend two community events per quarter; we call it the KICKS requirement (Kids in the community). The calendar will bring more relevance specific to the GL class than the types of events we have been pushing in the past.

I am thoroughly impressed with the Noah and Kate's use of the blog. Teaching 3 different grades + 3 different classes has made me weary of the additional screen time, but reading the questions/comments has me feeling more inspired to try and check in...

Best start to the year in my nine years of teaching experience! This is largely due to the influence the GL recommended community building activities across ALL of my classes. The group quizzes and playful approach have my students much more unified. I did shy away from the knot game, thinking it was a little early for the physical contact. Have had some success with the Dartmouth method, physical movement/name game, a variation of Zip, Zap, Zop that my wife taught me. The fishbowl twist to the knot game sounds more accessible and will try the day after tomorrow.

I have all student using comp books. My TA and I have been recycling abandoned ones and a case discovered from summer school, as well as selling new ones for $1. "Do you want to kill a tree or use a recycled one" was my mantra for today. I have a few cases of binders donated from a law firm and will be pushing students to use these for the portfolio collection. How to store 50+ binders though?!?

I am off in terms of the specific lesson days aligning with office hours/journaling/classmeeting, but this is a normal state of affairs in my classroom. We will still keep the Mon/Wed/Fri routine, and the lessons will be adapted to fit around this consistency. Starting the Leaders Project will be tight to manage this week and may have to be put off until Monday. I am honostly rolling with the preps on a 1-2 day basis right now in all of my classes.

Wow! The Chrisjordan website is awe-inspiring. It seems like great fodder for journaling / warmups.

Notice the Calendar of Events on the right hand side of blog

Just a note that our intern Kristina has posted a calendar of city wide events that might be relevant to GL class stuff. Scroll down on the blog home page to see it. If you pass on events that you hear about, we'll add them.

When you inform Ss of any particular event, let us know and we will try to arrange an intern to attend with them to help with follow up and incorporating it into class discussion or presentations.

Monday

Thanks to you guys for using the blog, I already feel so much more in touch with what is happening in the classroom. I'm going to look at the meat stuff for the Climate Change Unit.

Kate, I agree with broadening the CLP to Social Justice Leaders (that was how it was originally written in to the unit but we cut it back in the interest of time). If you see ways to do that, please keep blogging about them and I will update the unit for next time.
very excited to see the definitions your students came up with for Social and Environmental Justice.

Noah, if you think binders work better than hanging folders, that makes sense to me.

As soon as you guys have a chance to do the FTF pre test will you get those in a folder for me, please? I'd like to hang on to them for when we meet and plan with FTF.

Kate, you mentioned more guiding structure. I will get you a rubric for the CLP tomorrow, an intern is drafting it and I should be able to send it off to you tomorrow. What else can we provide for that guidance? Really glad you're making it a more thorough research project, I think that's important. Sets a good base to work from for future presentation projects.

thanks guys!

Quick Thoughts on adjusting plans for this week

Greetings, this is Kate H-F.
Our class came up with a great definition of social justice and environmental justice. I'll pass it along when I'm back in the room and can transcribe it from the chart paper where Abdul wrote it down. We had our first office hours on Friday, and the agenda for this week's class meeting is already developing to include a drafting of a HW policy we can agree on and also setting up class jobs. We're going to get started on setting up portfolios this week, do the Proud Introductions on Monday along with the journal. After our class meeting on Wednesday (class doesn't meet Tuesdays) I want to do the 4 directions of leadership activity--I found the link and got the materials from the Hollyhock Institute and I encourage others to do the same. http://www.hollyhockleadership.org/resources/fundraising/teamtypes/view?searchterm=four%20directions

Like Noah I'm not going to get started on the Community Leaders Project until Thursday at the earliest. I revisited a UCSC website on Social Justice Leaders and I'm toying with the idea of broadening the scope of the Leaders Project to include a bit more research. http://collegeten.ucsc.edu/activists.shtml I'm also going to work with our school librarian to this end a bit. So that's another reason for pushing it back a few days. I really like the community leader approach, but want to build in some more variety to the research skills included in the project. Also, I realize that my students are going to need some more guiding structure. Thoughts?

Meat and Climate Change

Here's a recent post from my mom's cooking blog: http://cookeasyvegan.blogspot.com/2008/09/help-save-planetbecome-vegetarian.html

It has a slight vegan bias, but contains some powerful information that might be useful during the climate change unit. The fact that meat production accounts for 21% of greenhouse gas emissions is astounding and is a piece of information often left out of the media's coverage of global warming.

TGIF

Our first fire drill of the year took up part of our class today, so we fell a little behind. Overall, another pretty good day. We had our first absence today and another student was very late. I didn't react other than adding attendance to our list of agenda items on the board.

The kids did an AMAZING job of adding leadership key words to our list after the pair-share. I will type them up on Monday. We also did office hours for the few remaining minutes of class after the fire drill. Each student labeled a hanging folder with his/her name and we collected homework.

So, I'm not sure what to do about the portfolios: binder or hanging file? I don't know that I have room in my classroom to store 27 binders. But the hanging files are not going to do it. Maybe I'll have them decorate the hanging file for now and we will transfer things to a binder later on. The decorated hanging file could be hole punched and included in the binder or slipped into the cover.

Monday I will do the FTF pre-test, continue with names (try our first quiz), start self-intros, and do our first journal entry. I am probably going to push back the Community Leader Project until next Thursday. Last year I purchased comp books for all of the students for journals. If I have time this weekend, I might go out and buy a bunch for this semester. Let me know if you see any good deals where the limit is more than 4.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday at CSHS

Great class today. We started with the name go-around. They did much better today - no laughing. I read the profile of last year's Wales Foundation winners and they came up with an impressive list of key words.

We talked about homework and I assigned them both the community interview and the self interview. Hopefully we'll have time to talk about both tomorrow.

We returned to the ground rules and added a couple more. I may type them up this weekend and bring them to next week's class meeting.

I tried a little Dartmouth today and it worked well. I did it with names and colors.

Tomorrow I expect we'll run out of time before we get to self-intros, but I'm really looking forward to them. The self-into presentations were a key turning point early on in my class last year.

Overall, the climate of my class is a B+. There are still a couple of kids who need to comment after something their friends say. We're working on that. Luckily, I know 2 of the 3 powerhouse 10th grade girls pretty well from last year.

I'm excited that GL is also my homeroom. They were pretty fired up today when I went over the school's new attendance policy during homeroom. I encouraged them to bring their ideas to the student council. Secretly, I think I'm hoping that our class attendance policy ends up being more strict than the schools after a couple of more class meetings.

So far, I have near PERFECT attendance: 26 out of 27 for the first 2 days. The one girl that has been absent will likely drop the class. I want to keep that momentum going and really keep on top of attendance this year (and more importantly, get the kids to be accountable for the group's attendance). I've requested that my administration close the class. Even in just 2 days, it seems like it would be difficult for a new student to just jump in.

My only real source of anxiety right now is getting the group going with class jobs and reaching a functioning level. It feels like there are so many elements of the class that require training. It's almost a little overwhelming. This weekend I plan to take a look at all of the parts and figure out a strategy to make it manageable.

Here's a cool resource that makes a great opener for class or a hook to get a discussion about consumption going: http://www.chrisjordan.com/
If you haven't heard of him, Chris Jordan is a Seattle environmental activist/artist who uses photography (and photoshop) to spread messages about consumerism among other issues. Here is a more direct link to some of his most powerful consumption pieces: http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php (be aware of the Abu Ghraib photos before you scroll down in front of your class).

First Day

I have about 20 students in my class, an interesting mix that's bound to shift a bit as schedules get finalized (there were a few no-shows today also).

The Knot activity was fun (I was skeptical for some reason, thought it might be too touchy-feeling for these cool kids). We ended up doing it as a fishbowl activity, a quick adaptation since one student in the class uses a wheelchair and is not able to hold hands with partners (mobility issue with her arms). Half the class was on the inside of the circle and the outside circle gave advise and feedback, making the debrief even better.

The group was extremely respectful throughout, seeming to be very much on board. It's an interesting mix: definitely some quieter ones, including a student who contributed the idea that "it's okay to be shy" onto our brainstorm of Class Agreements. The list is definitely subject to revision, and I'm ready to challenge her in her shyness (despite this comment, every single one of them gave great introductions on the first try, very little corrections or re-does required). It reminded me, though, of how I want to incorporate the Four Directions of Leadership activity into this unit somehow, and soon--like next week. Ideas of where this might best fit?

I managed to 'get through' everything on the plan for this first day--though I held off on saying much about course specifics, particularly Portfolio.

The community leader profiles are interesting, but I'm interested in collecting some more to have more options. The list of leadership traits on chart paper is underway and it's a great idea.

I improvised a Rapid Fire session in the last 5 minutes of class and they responded really well to it--it was all just questions about names. Very helpful to have had that practice with everyone last Friday!!!

Day One

What did you do today in class that you were pleased with?

Did you do even just one thing to begin building community?

Any immediate suggestions for what to do or what not to do on the first day of GL?

Silent Teacher

The article we included in your binders was a chapter called 'Silent Teacher' from the book Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue by Paul Woodruff. We hope you had/get the chance to read the rest of the article. Do share any feedback/reflections on how this article may be helpful for teaching GL.

- Haley

We Can't Teach Responsibility, We Can Only Share It

How do we get away from the traditional classroom?