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
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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.
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