Cross posted at Embracing Citizenship
Free the Children have an annual awareness campaign called The Vow of Silence.
The main goal for the Grade 8 Teaching team at Sargent Park was to make our students aware of why it is important to stand in solidarity with the millions of child labourers in the world.
The Students in our school need to know that they do not need to stand by while children are subjected to exploitation, poverty and the denial of their basic rights.
The Vow of Silence is a way to make them aware. So on November 30th this year all of the Grade 8 students and many of their classmates went silent for a day. In the school teachers did not talk, annoucments were not read and silence reigned over all. It was amazing. For a loonie or a toonie the students were allowed and encouraged not to talk, use cellphones, text, connect on the internet for a day. Many passed the test. Hallways were silent during classtime, during class change and even during lunch. Ordering lunch was difficult when you do not have a voice but students managed to communicate even without a voice.
The Grade 8 team passed out information for other teachers to use in their classes. Articles talking about the exploitation of children around the world were used as language arts and social studies lessons. As a school we became more aware.
At the end of the day when it was all over students and staff were more aware of what was going on around the world. We had also raised over $300 for Free the Children.
Did you take the Vow of Silence this year? It is never to late.
Here is what our day sounded and looked like.
Showing posts with label "teaching citizenship". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "teaching citizenship". Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
New Year New Citizenship Curriculum
Well it is the end of October, the temperature is cooling off here in Manitoba but it is rising inside the Grade 8 classes at Sargent Park School. We are embarking on our fourth year of Teaching Citizenship and we have added a few new twists.
One of the first twists is that we have asked the students to participate in an activity called Halloween for Hunger.
We have had 3 meetings with the students so far. Of the 140 that we teach between 60 and 70 are willing to do this activity. Wow if each student brings in 10 items for our food bank that would be over 700 items. Our class food drives have been successful so far and we have brought in between 100 and 200 items. I am proud of our students. Great cause too. Helping hunger at Halloween instead of helping tooth decay.
This year we are a We School. This means that we get to participate in We Day in Winnipeg and do activities for Free the Children. This has opened up many opportunities for our students to see the power of youth in action. We get to take 45 students to this event. So they are showing us actions they are doing to be chosen. Sadly there will be lots of competition. and not enough seats. The rest of the rooms will watch the simulcast on Much Music back at the school.
Here is what we have done so far....
To inspire the students about the power of humanity we showed this X-Factor Australia clip. If you have not seen it you need to. Warning you will need some kleenex at the end. Powerful stuff. When showing this to your students stop it at the 50 second mark. Talk about what they have seen then play the rest of the video. (The crafting of this video by X-factor is also worth noting. For a film class it is amazing how powerful the soundtrack and editing is)
Our first We Day activities focused around Spencer West and Craig Keilburger. Spencer is a motivational speaker for a group called Me to We. It is affiliated with Free the Children and pushes youth to become active in their community and around the world. We showed a video of Spencer
Following that we had the kids read a biography of Spencer we had found online. The students read the biography and highlighted the key words. We are going to have them put all the words into a Word splash like a Wordle.
Once the students complete this task they are doing a few different activities, found on the second page of the document. Most importantly we want the kids to go from I COULD to I WILL statements. Following the I WILL statements we will take a photo of the students eyes and I WILL statement over their mouths. This will be made into a movie and photo mosaic like the one found at this Ewan McIntosh post. Instead of hands we will use our I WILL statements. It should be powerful.
As we were studying and learning about Craig the idea was to draw parallels between his life and the lives of my students. We used a 3 column approach to attack this issue. I found a biography of Craig online and the students read and watched the video to find out key characteristics about Craig's life and passions. It was interesting to see all the interest in what he had accomplished and to see them struggle to see similarities between what their lives are like and what his has been. Once the students had done this note taking we asked them to choose 4 character traits they admire in Craig and write a few sentences explaining why they had chosen them.
Lots of work for a morning but it was amazing. I had two classes in my room. That is 70 students. All of them were on task and talking about what we were doing and the people they had just met on video and print.
We will continue this lesson on Monday morning. Following this we will show Pay It Forward and inspire the students to do Random Acts of Kindness!! Wow they will really start to change soon!!
One of the first twists is that we have asked the students to participate in an activity called Halloween for Hunger.
We have had 3 meetings with the students so far. Of the 140 that we teach between 60 and 70 are willing to do this activity. Wow if each student brings in 10 items for our food bank that would be over 700 items. Our class food drives have been successful so far and we have brought in between 100 and 200 items. I am proud of our students. Great cause too. Helping hunger at Halloween instead of helping tooth decay.
This year we are a We School. This means that we get to participate in We Day in Winnipeg and do activities for Free the Children. This has opened up many opportunities for our students to see the power of youth in action. We get to take 45 students to this event. So they are showing us actions they are doing to be chosen. Sadly there will be lots of competition. and not enough seats. The rest of the rooms will watch the simulcast on Much Music back at the school.
Here is what we have done so far....
To inspire the students about the power of humanity we showed this X-Factor Australia clip. If you have not seen it you need to. Warning you will need some kleenex at the end. Powerful stuff. When showing this to your students stop it at the 50 second mark. Talk about what they have seen then play the rest of the video. (The crafting of this video by X-factor is also worth noting. For a film class it is amazing how powerful the soundtrack and editing is)
Our first We Day activities focused around Spencer West and Craig Keilburger. Spencer is a motivational speaker for a group called Me to We. It is affiliated with Free the Children and pushes youth to become active in their community and around the world. We showed a video of Spencer
Following that we had the kids read a biography of Spencer we had found online. The students read the biography and highlighted the key words. We are going to have them put all the words into a Word splash like a Wordle.
Once the students complete this task they are doing a few different activities, found on the second page of the document. Most importantly we want the kids to go from I COULD to I WILL statements. Following the I WILL statements we will take a photo of the students eyes and I WILL statement over their mouths. This will be made into a movie and photo mosaic like the one found at this Ewan McIntosh post. Instead of hands we will use our I WILL statements. It should be powerful.
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| http://yfrog.com/kljbhxuj |
We also introduced the students to Craig Keilburger. In my opinion one of the most important Canadians of all time. At such a young age Craig is the founder and spark behind the Free the Children Organization. This is a group he started when he was but.... 11 years old.
As we were studying and learning about Craig the idea was to draw parallels between his life and the lives of my students. We used a 3 column approach to attack this issue. I found a biography of Craig online and the students read and watched the video to find out key characteristics about Craig's life and passions. It was interesting to see all the interest in what he had accomplished and to see them struggle to see similarities between what their lives are like and what his has been. Once the students had done this note taking we asked them to choose 4 character traits they admire in Craig and write a few sentences explaining why they had chosen them.
Lots of work for a morning but it was amazing. I had two classes in my room. That is 70 students. All of them were on task and talking about what we were doing and the people they had just met on video and print.
We will continue this lesson on Monday morning. Following this we will show Pay It Forward and inspire the students to do Random Acts of Kindness!! Wow they will really start to change soon!!
Monday, October 10, 2011
October Updates and a Citizenship Curriculum?
Keeping a internal promise I made this summer I am trying to blog more this year. One of the things I will do is to do monthly updates on my pedagogy and goings on at school. Welcome to the end of my first month.
In math we started a collaborative project with two schools in Ontario. My posts were all under the Mantario Running tag at the Sargent Park Mathzone. I am grateful to my two Ontario schools who also participated. I need to apologize about my fizzling out at the end. We managed to incorporate a good deal of a ratio, rate and proportion unit around our cross country seasons. Now that cross country season is over I hope to connect with Andy and Heather's classes in eluminate and do some creative problem solving.
Speaking of running. Did you know that my Cross Country team won all four categories eligable to us this year. Fantastic running and they trained over 3500 kms collectively. Great job runners! Here is our map.
View Mantario Running in a larger map
Our next Math Unit will be on graphing. I have found two great lessons from NCTM that fit into our Citizenship Project this year. I am looking forward to pushing my students to learn graphing and learn about world issues at the same time. Amazing how things fall into our laps sometimes.
Speaking of Citizenship, Sargent Park, is part of WeDay this year.
This is so exciting. If you are interested in teaching responsibility and citizenship to your students their website is where you need to go. I am amazed by what the Free the Children organization presents to teachers and students. We still will be doing our old favorites to build citizenship this year. Pay it Forward, 25 Cents a Day and 2 Minutes to Make a Difference. But we are adding more fabulous things this year. We will do a Halloween Foodbank Drive. Instead of going out and asking for candy students will have a choice to go to their neighbours and ask for donations of canned goods to take to a foodbank.
Amazingly enough October was our foodbank drive month. Kismit again!! In November we will do the Vow of Silence that is to educate the students about children who are subjected to exploitation, poverty and the denial of their basic rights.
It seems like so much to do in so little time but with a team effort we can build the leaders of tomorrow and teach the curriculum too. With that in mind I have started a new blog. Very much in its infancy but a place for my students to go when they are trying to make a difference. Titled Embracing Citizenship it will be a hub and information stop for this new Citizenship Curriculum my team and I are creating at Sargent Park School. Wow all of that in September.... so much time still to go and we are filled to the rim with goodness. Looking forward to October and November.
In math we started a collaborative project with two schools in Ontario. My posts were all under the Mantario Running tag at the Sargent Park Mathzone. I am grateful to my two Ontario schools who also participated. I need to apologize about my fizzling out at the end. We managed to incorporate a good deal of a ratio, rate and proportion unit around our cross country seasons. Now that cross country season is over I hope to connect with Andy and Heather's classes in eluminate and do some creative problem solving.
Speaking of running. Did you know that my Cross Country team won all four categories eligable to us this year. Fantastic running and they trained over 3500 kms collectively. Great job runners! Here is our map.
View Mantario Running in a larger map
Our next Math Unit will be on graphing. I have found two great lessons from NCTM that fit into our Citizenship Project this year. I am looking forward to pushing my students to learn graphing and learn about world issues at the same time. Amazing how things fall into our laps sometimes.
Speaking of Citizenship, Sargent Park, is part of WeDay this year.
This is so exciting. If you are interested in teaching responsibility and citizenship to your students their website is where you need to go. I am amazed by what the Free the Children organization presents to teachers and students. We still will be doing our old favorites to build citizenship this year. Pay it Forward, 25 Cents a Day and 2 Minutes to Make a Difference. But we are adding more fabulous things this year. We will do a Halloween Foodbank Drive. Instead of going out and asking for candy students will have a choice to go to their neighbours and ask for donations of canned goods to take to a foodbank.
Amazingly enough October was our foodbank drive month. Kismit again!! In November we will do the Vow of Silence that is to educate the students about children who are subjected to exploitation, poverty and the denial of their basic rights.
It seems like so much to do in so little time but with a team effort we can build the leaders of tomorrow and teach the curriculum too. With that in mind I have started a new blog. Very much in its infancy but a place for my students to go when they are trying to make a difference. Titled Embracing Citizenship it will be a hub and information stop for this new Citizenship Curriculum my team and I are creating at Sargent Park School. Wow all of that in September.... so much time still to go and we are filled to the rim with goodness. Looking forward to October and November.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Teaching Citizenship Part 1 The WHY....
This is an attempt to recreate my keynote from Byte 2011. I really want to get across why it is important to teach citizenship or to model being a good citizen. It is in all of our best interests.
I am not going to lie to you. I am a lucky person. I love my job, I love my students and I do not have any problem going to work every day. I teach in a rather large Nursery to Grade 9 school in the west end of Winnipeg. Sargent Park School has a population of about 1000 students of which the 140 grade 8 students are all mine. The majority of them are kind courteous and kids you would bring home to meet your family.
So why am I so concerned about teaching Citizenship to students. Think about the news lately. What is the dominating theme in popular media...
Facebook is bad. Bad Bad Bad? Yet..
Yet around the world things are happening because of Social Media... but it is bad please remember that!!
Youtube gets cute kids noticed.
Kids should not be on the computer just learning reading writing and writhmatic.
If you were to ask my parents who live across from Ecole Robert H Smith (a large elementary school and popular teen late night hangout) they might describe teens this way:
Not the most flattering light to see the next generation of leaders in is it?
On the other hand
Teachers see:
But lets look at this another way. Perhaps citizenship is not a bundle of rights but a bundle of responsibilities. Kids especially teens do not just wake up and understand these bundles of responsibilities. They have a hard enough time waking up!!
cc licensed flickr photo shared by Ollie Crafoord
I think that the vast majority of teens are trying to find themselves. They need a push them to go in positive directions. A favorite analogy of mine is that teens are clay creatures that have been molded into who they are by their previous experiences but the clay is not cured yet. We still have time to mold some important imprinting into these creatures before it is set.
Teens have a hard time seeing past their out-stretched hand. Their world view is only as far as their hand can reach to the next french fry or meal. (Imagine Linda Carter and Wonder Woman).
These students will be adults soon and need to be shown how they can become better citizens, to do their part in making life better for others.
As educators we all need young adults to wrestle with these ideas or responsibilities before they take their rightful place as leaders in our communities and our world.
I think you can create better citizens by empowering students to become better people. At Sargent Park we do three projects a year in Grade 8:
When do we have time to do all of this.... Creative time-tabling and homework kids WANT to do:) Believe it or not there are lots of curricular connections to all of these projects. I will point them out to you during this brief talk.
I am not going to lie to you. I am a lucky person. I love my job, I love my students and I do not have any problem going to work every day. I teach in a rather large Nursery to Grade 9 school in the west end of Winnipeg. Sargent Park School has a population of about 1000 students of which the 140 grade 8 students are all mine. The majority of them are kind courteous and kids you would bring home to meet your family.
So why am I so concerned about teaching Citizenship to students. Think about the news lately. What is the dominating theme in popular media...
Facebook is bad. Bad Bad Bad? Yet..
Yet around the world things are happening because of Social Media... but it is bad please remember that!!
Youtube gets cute kids noticed.
Kids should not be on the computer just learning reading writing and writhmatic.
If you were to ask my parents who live across from Ecole Robert H Smith (a large elementary school and popular teen late night hangout) they might describe teens this way:
- “Hanging out late in public places”, 7/11, play structures
- lazy just give me the answer please
- naive fragile unique
- Not go getter's “do I have too?”
Not the most flattering light to see the next generation of leaders in is it?
On the other hand
Teachers see:
- Self-absorbed; indulged; multi-tasking
- decent, grounded and optimistic
- entitled, distracted, perplexed
- impulsive, impatient, collaborative.
- hopeful, restless, connected
- connected, curious, social
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship
"Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public , volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens.
Citizenship was equated by Virginia Leary (1999) as connoting "a bundle of rights
But lets look at this another way. Perhaps citizenship is not a bundle of rights but a bundle of responsibilities. Kids especially teens do not just wake up and understand these bundles of responsibilities. They have a hard enough time waking up!!
cc licensed flickr photo shared by Ollie Crafoord
I think that the vast majority of teens are trying to find themselves. They need a push them to go in positive directions. A favorite analogy of mine is that teens are clay creatures that have been molded into who they are by their previous experiences but the clay is not cured yet. We still have time to mold some important imprinting into these creatures before it is set.
Teens have a hard time seeing past their out-stretched hand. Their world view is only as far as their hand can reach to the next french fry or meal. (Imagine Linda Carter and Wonder Woman).
These students will be adults soon and need to be shown how they can become better citizens, to do their part in making life better for others.
As educators we all need young adults to wrestle with these ideas or responsibilities before they take their rightful place as leaders in our communities and our world.
I think you can create better citizens by empowering students to become better people. At Sargent Park we do three projects a year in Grade 8:
- Part 1 Pay it Forward (Individual Random act of Kindness)
- Part 2 25¢ a day (the power of the click. In just one click you can help people from all over the world. Now local is global)
- Part 3 2 Minutes to Make a Difference (Student initiated go out and make a difference video)
When do we have time to do all of this.... Creative time-tabling and homework kids WANT to do:) Believe it or not there are lots of curricular connections to all of these projects. I will point them out to you during this brief talk.
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