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.

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!!

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.

Hard Drive Failure

cc licensed flickr photo shared by hindesite

I never thought I would say this but.... please back up your backup!! A few weeks ago I had a catastrophic hard drive meltdown.  Not on my aging MBP but on my brand new Lacie External Hard Drive.  Here is how it unfolded.

I was sitting in my working spot uploading photos to my Aperture Libraries when my Lacie fell over on the carpet.  It did not fall off a table, or even 6 cms nope it just fell over onto the carpet.  I was not all that worried till I heard the tell tale sound of clicking.... OMG you have to be kidding me.

I tried to recover anything from the drive, took it into the shop but was told it was a HD failure.  On that drive were 2 years of photos:(

Such a simple accident can ruin so many memories.  Not everything was lost. I had most photos on flickr so I used photo grabbr to get most of them back to a new HD.  What I could not find on flickr I found on my Time Machine backup in the basement.  Out of 5000+ photos I only lost about 250 but that is 250 to many.  I recommend that all of us who use external drives find other drives to back up all photos on. 

I am now putting my raw masters onto a different usb hard drive after putting them onto the Lacie.  I really do not want to relive that weekend over again.

Why Connections Matter

As many of you know already a fantastic event happened in the beginning of August.


cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

Unplug'd was a summit of Canadian Educators who came together because ________ Matters.  We got together, networked, talked and were a group for three intensive days.  What came out of it was a terrific document and more importantly were connections.


cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

Every week the connections and people we met at The Edge in Ontario get stronger and stronger.  We read each others material, we chat in twitter and Google+ and find new ways to collaborate and make our pedagogy stronger. Already new collaborations are on my horizon  with @aforgave, @hdurninand @alanahcallan!!

Being part of the ds106 broadcast and lurking in on Google+ it was fun to see the personalities of Allanah (Her Smile and boat distractions) and Gulia how was working the board from behind the scenes with a Cheshire cat grin on her face.  I love all of you.

Why do you have to have Conferences, meetings, meet-ups with collegues who give a damn..... it is because we are not alone.  We are connected.  It is fun and great to share ideas and collaborate with each other.

Unplug'd Rocked. Correction Unplug'd is still Rockin!!

Running for a Purpose

   have been an athlete for many years. I started swimming when I was 12 and continued until I was 20.  The following years were a combination of trying out different sports.  I ran, ran the Timex Road Racing Series in Winnipeg and even tried triathlons.... but it wasn't until last year where I hooked up with a trainer/friend and started training for marathons.  My first real training since I was a swimmer.  It felt great and I love training again.  But wait this is not why I am writing this post.


cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

Part of my training regiment for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon is to run a Half Marathon on September 5th.  No big deal I have run dozens of half marathons.  It is the cause that got my attention.  Most half marathons have a cause that you can fundraise for.  Normally I shy away from this and use my entry fee as my donation.  This half marathon is different.  The cause is Diabetes.  Normally that wouldn't do much for me until May of this year.


cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

During the month of May one of my twins Colin started to have headaches and wetting the bed frequently.  We took him to the doctor and we were sent immediately to the Endocrinologist. We informed that he had Type 1 Diabetes.  Colin had lost the lottery and was the one in 600 kid that had a bad pancreas. It just stopped working.  Colin took it stride, we as parents learned how to give him insulin, and life moved on. New routines new challenges but life moved on


cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

Interestingly enough soon after Colin was diagnosed lots of stories in the news was talking about new advancements in Diabetes Research.  It was most promising. Perhaps in Colin's lifetime he will be cured of this disease.

I have friends with Type 1 Diabeties, @cogdog has run many a marathon to raise funds for diabetes. Now it is my turn to ask for help.  You too can play a part in curing this disease.

Link to>>> Sponsoring my run....<<<< 

 will provide funds to search for a cure for diabetes. I know there are many of you out there.  If we all do a little it is amazing how those "littles" become so much.  Thank you in advance.  I will keep you posted on the fundraising and the result!

My Unplug'd Experience

The Unplug'd Participantscc licensed flickr photo shared by unplugd

From August 5 to 7th 2011 forty Canadian Educators got together to spend time talking about "Why ________ Matters!".  It was a truly Canadian experience. Why had we gotten together and were would this be leading us too?  These are questions I still wrestle with today when explaining to people what we accomplished that weekend.  Perhaps the Unplug'd website would help. Here is what it said:

UnPlug’d brings together Canadian educational change agents to share peer-reviewed success stories; to deepen relationships among participants; to publish the collective vision of the group.  Grassroots educators will share their first-hand experiences, collectively considering modern approaches to learning.  The summit will culminate with the release a publication that communicates a vision for the future of K-12 education in Canada.  

 Forty educators, 40 stories made for passionate discussions.  It was the discussion that was so special about Unplugd.  Most of us were familiar with each other from our online PLN.  We had talked, chatted in 140 characters or less but never sat down and looked each other in the eyes and had conversations.  It is always fascinating to meet people in our online network and family F2F.  Things change and we start to hear the passion behind the words that we read so often.  This is one of the reasons why Unplug'd worked. We did deepen relationships with other participants such a powerful experience.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10
We were able to unhook ourselves from the network. Have a F2F network of people all gathered around a table, canoe, dock, lake, cabin, meal anywhere you could sit or be with someone conversations were happening.  Real conversations.  This was so rich.

All of us came with our homework completed.  An essay of 250 to 400 words.  Something you were passionate about.  We were grouped into small pods or chapter groups with a loose connection between us.  What was amazing is that when we all shared our stories and essays it was obvious that we were meant to be in that specific group.  The Organizers had grouped us based on title alone.  As we read, shared and became a team you could see the threads holding us together.  As the organizers said in their introduction

to publish the collective vision of the group.  Grassroots educators will share their first-hand experiences, collectively considering modern approaches to learning.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

When I walked into this project it would be fair that my batteries were on low.  I had gotten through the year, had great students, used tech to capture their imagination and allow them to be producers of learning but still felt empty.  I had not done something new, not found anything to push my envelope of learning.  Unplug'd changed all of that.  Personally I am recharged and have done 2 blog posts in a week.  Reflecting, thinking and sharing thoughts.  Wow! It is fun to write again. All of this would not have happened if it was not for that weekend.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10
But where do we go.  The book has been published.  The Introduction and Chapter 1 are available now  and the next chapters will be published every week.  This allows for discussion, debate and conversations in manageable chunks. I hope you all read the book and soak in the messages that were shared.  Something will resonate with you.  Take that thought, that bit of knowledge and use it to recharge your batteries.

This was a bit of a rambling post but hey I got it done.  There will be more posts to come. Just like a sunrise:)


cc licensed flickr photo shared by charbeck10

London Riots

Before I begin to unpack the fantastic adventure I had with the #unplugd11 crew out in Ontario a new post popped into my head yesterday.  Yes a new post.  Been a while.  Since April.  Bad Blogging.... but here it is.


As I was driving to pick up my son at his camp the CBC news came on and they were talking about the Riots in London and why they were happening.  One thing mentioned was the disenfranchised youth.  Kids that have been forgotten by social programs, can't find work, or do not want to find work, who are using social media to gather and loot and riot.

Image from London

cc licensed flickr photo shared by tgeasland

This was disturbing in many ways.  The riots in Vancouver show that this is not just a London problem.  Youth these days see it as OK to go on a rampage and destroy things.


cc licensed flickr photo shared by Charles de Jesus
Look around you at the litter on the streets and the malaise with so many 20 somethings.  I deal with 13 and 14 year olds.  Most of them keen on life still and less than 20% would be susceptible to joining these RIOTS just because they could do mayhem. So where does it break down.  How do we go from happy kids to ..... lets go break things and be "bad".

This brings me back to the CBC report yesterday.  They interviewed a youth in his 20's in Manchester. What struck me about his interview were the following statements (paraphrasing from memory sorry)

• Are you not afraid you are going to be caught? Nah I go out all the time till late in the morning.  Never been caught.  How many have they caught anyways 3 or 4 maybe 10 they won't get me.
• What will happen when you get home? No one cares there. Are they going to ground me? Yell at me. Whatever.

 Here is a youtube video (language warning) not the interview I heard but similar




The tone of the interviewee was so nonchalant, almost I am doing this because I am bored.  That is the scarey part for me.  Just because I am bored I am going to wreck a city and cause lots of damage and hurt people.  Yep I have nothing better to do.

I hope we can find a way to improve peoples way of life.  Give them something to look forward to.  Allow them to find a passion that is something other than looting, violence and mayhem.  Perhaps we can all do our part.

Explain to our kids, tell them what is going on in England. Why it started and how it is able to maintain its intensity.  After we have dealt with our family we then need to figure a way to use this in school to explain to our students the COST of what is happening.  Instant riot leads to long term pain for so many people.

It is a bit of a rant I know but we need to take action now before that youth malaise settles in here and floods over onto the street.  The world is going through a rocky rough time right now.  We all need to do our part.

Just thinking out loud.