OS with students after Obama's inauguration AND Leadership Skills in School Groups
ashley cooper
mail.easilyamazed at gmail.com
Wed Jan 28 11:29:55 PST 2009
I'm so glad you enjoyed hearing and feeling the children's wisdom and
discoveries. Thanks for joining me in the celebration!
I heard feedback from one parent of a 3rd grader that her child was frustrated
with the other kids not taking the talking points seriously and coming up
with silly or bogus solutions to problems. She pretty much saw the exercise
as wasted on the uninterested 3rd graders and told her mom that she'd heard
it went much better in the 1st and 2nd grade classes! I told the mom that the
frustrations her daughter experienced of people not 'staying on topic' or
keeping it serious is one that often we have to deal with in groups and we
get to come up with solutions and practices for what to do in those
situations. I let the mom know that if her daughter would like to talk more
about what she experienced/learned at the Open Space, I'd love to. I haven't
had a chance to see her yet... to learn more about where her frustrations
emerged. If we get to talk, I'll be so excited to be in this learning with
her... such precious skills and opportunities to be having at 9 years old.
And since I'm talking about kids, I'll share another practice that I do with
my students (1st through 3rd graders). We meet once a week for Friendship
Group (I'm the counselor and "Friendship Teacher"). In friendship
group, students
have various jobs. These provide them direct opportunities to learn
leadership skills for being in dialogue and learning with a group. The
students learn skills to
o Help the group run smoothly
o Help the group to take a pause or slow down when it needs to
o Listen for the main ideas
o Express insights with words and with pictures
Currently there are 3 jobs:
The Listener or the Summarizer. This person wears a badge (that has a sweet
spiral on it, representing the swirling of ideas being broght together to
points) that designates them as the Listener and often has a clipboard to
take notes. They are listening for the main ideas of our Friendship Group,
important points that are being discussed, something the group is learning
or anything interesting that they hear. At the end of the group, they
summarize for the whole class what they think was important in today's
Friendship Group.
Another job is Keeper of the Bells. This person's responsibility is to hold
the Tibetan bells and ring them when they believe the group needs to refocus
for a moment of silence, to take a deep breath, or to invite the group to
stop and savor a great idea that was mentioned or a powerful moment. Some
students get the timing and listening for this job on their own and it's
beautiful (and refreshing) to experience the moments to pause that they
invite. Other students follow my cues to ring the bells when it would be a
good idea. Then at the end of the group (after the Listener shares the main
ideas) the Keeper of the Bells rings the bells to let us know group is over.
Most of the classes (I work with 9) ring the bells 3 times at the end. They
developed that ritual on their own.
I've also introduced a Graphic Listener or Graphic Recorder who uses their
own form of artistic expression to draw what they hear the group exploring.
Their drawing is simple with pencil and is hung up in the room after our
group for others to view.
This is a new practice that I've introduced this year and am very happy with
how it's working. What ideas do you have for other jobs?
Thank you to all of you for this lovely place to be sharing and working
creatively together!
With gratitude,
Ashley
On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 5:17 PM, Tenneson Woolf <tenneson at berkana.org>wrote:
> Yup, lovely all around. Gems.
>
>
>
> And yes to the best description of reinventing the wheel.
>
>
>
> Thanks Chris.
>
>
>
> Tenneson Woolf
>
> Lindon, Utah USA
>
> tenneson at berkana.org
>
> 801 785 2276
>
> 801 376 2213 Cell
>
>
>
> www.tennesonwoolf.com
>
> www.berkana.org
>
> www.artofhosting.org
>
>
>
> *And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who
> could not hear the music.*
>
> Nietzsche
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Chris
> Corrigan
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 27, 2009 5:54 PM
> *To:* OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [OSLIST] SV: [OSLIST] OS with students after Obama's
> inauguration
>
>
>
> Ashley...this is a lovely story of learning from inspiration. Our family
> was in Hawaii during the inauguration, which is where Barak Obama was born,
> and everyone was so excited there. It was so inspiring that my own kids
> started reading voraciously on the history of Presidents, and thinking a lot
> about what Obama was saying and what his election means. It says something
> that no Prime Minsiter of Canada has yet inspired such a fit of
> self-organized civics study around our house!
>
> And I'm always struck by the fact that most of the time from kids we hear
> what the cynical might call "the same old hopes and dreams and wisdom" but
> the process of birthing a nugget like that yourself is profound. For kids
> (and other disempowered folks in society) having realizations like this is a
> profound experience. I am a fan of "reinventing the wheel" a lot of the
> time, because the process of discovery and invention and creative
> conversationa and collaboration is just as important as getting the best
> result, or arriving at a piece of wisdom that is at once new and timeless.
> Many conversations result in nothing new being realized in terms of the
> bigger scheme of things (chatterboxes should keep quiet) but it is a
> profound moment when people arrive at those conclusions themselves. They
> experience themselves as wisdom keepers, and that is a very useful thing to
> know about oneself.
>
> Ashely, I am always warmed and moved by your dedication to holding spaces
> in which people can discover themselves. It is a great, great gift, and I
> hope you know that, and I hope others know that about you too.
>
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 2:14 PM, Thomas Herrmann <
> thomas at openspaceconsulting.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks dear Ashley for this inspiring posting and for the important work
> you are doing in the world!
>
>
>
> I have facilitated a few OS-events with children. I especially remember
> during a facilitated pre-meeting where we used a transfer in to start the
> meeting – one of the children (about 10 years old) then named what we had on
> the invitation (the event was about how to prevent harassement and mobbing
> at schools in the area). It went something like: One stick is easy to break
> but many sticks together are difficult to break.
>
>
>
> Just as employers, teachers were astonished by the wisdom, engagement and
> willingness to take responsibility amongst the kids – and scared maybe
> too...
>
>
>
> Thanks again for inspiring me – this is great work!
>
> Warm regards
>
> Thomas Herrmann, Kungsbacka, Sweden
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *Från:* OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] *För *ashley cooper
> *Skickat:* den 26 januari 2009 00:20
> *Till:* OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> *Ämne:* [OSLIST] OS with students after Obama's inauguration
>
>
>
> Ready to be inspired?!
>
> I opened space with 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders after President Obama's
> inauguration last week. These kids are amazing.
>
> Their questions (designed by the three 3rd graders on the planning team):
>
> - What is something that a group of people working together can change?
> - What is something that you think is important in our school or in our
> world that you would like to discuss?
>
> The event started with a poem written by one of the students on the
> planning team:
>
> *Our Speech by Mila Kopp*
> 1 person
> to a small group
> to a large group
> opportunity and ideas and change
> together we can make a difference
>
> And here are some of my favorite comments:
>
> - STOP Globle Warming (happy voice) in ten years (Deep Voice)
> - make a complante to the president
> - Invent vical that runs on trash or sun, rain
> - Nicely tell others to be nice
> - Help stop war by traiding reciorses
> - If you are shy talk
> - If you are a chatterbox let others have a chance to speak
> - I agree with (another student) that you don't need that many people,
> you only need like 5, you don't need like 15 or 20 or 50. You don't need
> huge numbers like that.
> - I learned that when everyone pitches in just a little bit, it can
> make a giant difference.
> - I discovered how pollution can make the air dirty and hurt people and
> animals
> - I discovered a lot of people have ideas too.
> - I discovered that once you think about it, there is a lot more waste
> - I learned it can actually be pretty fun to work with other people
> - Teacher: I learned that you all can have important conversations by
> yourselves and that you don't need the adults there. I also learned that you
> can self-organize what you want to talk about.
> - I discovered there is a lot of things to change and like President
> Obama, we should start.
>
> You can read more details about these events at :
> http://educatingtheheart.blogspot.com/2009/01/together-we-can-make-difference-open.html
>
> And see pictures here:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996625142@N01/sets/72157612937722591/
>
> I hope to have a video to share some day too... but I have to get
> permissions to show their beautiful faces!!
>
> with gratitude,
> Ashley
>
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>
> --
> CHRIS CORRIGAN
> Facilitation - Training - Process Design
> Open Space Technology
>
> Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
> Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
>
> Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
> http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com
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