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2006-2007
Session #2 Summary
LdF/AVW 4th Grade
9:00-2:00, December 8, 2006 Camp Jorn, Manitowish Waters
AVW Teacher: Lori Berryman
ILI Volunteers: John & Gretchen Spickerman
ILI Staff: Craig Kerr, Alice McFarlane, Ernie St. Germaine, and Matt White
We had a great group of 4th students today who were full of energy. We began with reviewing the ILI words and then giving the students a chance to “Pay it Forward” by acting out the word ‘fun.’ Each of the groups had creative ways to illustrate the idea of paying it forward with fun. One group acted out their scenes and then the rest of the students had to guess what activities were represented.
We had two new captains for running our ship today. Jazmyn and Shanae took the lead in giving directions for several games of “Captain Says”. They did a great job explaining the game. It is fun to watch them lead the activities as they continue to grow in their leadership skills.
After snack time we gathered up the students to explain about the ILI t-shirts and how the logo was created. They were excited to receive the t-shirts and to get the signatures of everyone in the group. Matt was giving creative picture signatures, so there was a line-up to receive one from him. The high school mentors also had the students sign a shirt for them.
After lunch half of the group went to play Jeopardy with Uncle Ernie. The students liked having the high school students to help with some of the questions. Although the 4th graders did a great job of answering questions as well. They really get into the game.
The other group stayed with Matt for a perspective activity. He started with a game called “Oh, that’s what it is!” He pulled out a pen, and explained that each person would receive the pen, and state what they thought it could be. The rest of the group would then respond with, “Oh, that’s what it is!” We had some creative responses: snake, javelin, line on a piece of paper, and plane. Matt talked about how we can all look at the same thing, but see something different. It does not necessarily mean that one person is right, or that someone else is wrong. Rather that we have different views on things and can try to understand another’s view point. We moved into the perspective activity with boxes, where the students try to figure out what object is in the middle. Towards the end of the activity, Matt told the students that they could all roll to the side that they thought offered the best view. Once they were all on the same side, they worked together to come up with their answer. The students did great sharing their ideas.
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #2 Summary
LdF/MHLT 4th Grade
9:00-2:00, December 7, 2006 Camp Jorn, Manitowish Waters
MHLT Teacher: Ken Schoville
ILI Volunteers: Dick and Joan Fahning
ILI Staff: Craig Kerr, Alice McFarlane, Ernie St. Germaine, and Matt White
We started out today with all of the students in a circle and had all the “taller” people introduce themselves. After the introductions Craig put all of the words on the floor that we talk about at every ILI session (Safety, Respect, Communicate, Cooperate, Pride, Fun). He had the students explain what each of the words meant and after they talked about the words and the students said that they understood what they meant, Craig had them put their hands on their heads and then on their heart. He explained to them that they were making a promise to follow the expectations set out with the words they had just explained.
Craig split the group into four smaller groups. Then, he explained the concept in the movie “Pay it Forward” with the help of Mrs. Maulson and Mr. Schoville. Once the students understood the concept of making a story about their group where one person’s actions influences another person’s action, we were ready to begin. The word to be illustrated was picked from the ILI words. Fun was the word that all the students decided to base their story. Each group had a unique story to tell and each group decided to act out their story. One of the groups used each one of their members to pass on positive experience that was fun! The students had a great time putting on a show for their peers and the teachers and staff did a great job of helping the students figure out what they wanted their story to be. After all of the performances Craig asked the students why they might have done this activity. The students had a lot of good answers: to communicate with each other, to work with each other, to cooperate and get along. Craig then asked the question, “Do we want what we do in ILI only to stay right here in this building?” The students answered in a unanimous “No!” He then explained that what we learn at the ILI sessions we want them to put into practice wherever they are.
By the time the students finished they were ready to get some of their energy out. Matt ran one of the all time favorite ILI activities, “Captain Says.” Once the students figured out what they were going to do they became very excited. After a few round of “Captain Says”, Matt circled up the students and the high school students dismissed them for snack.
Craig explained the ILI logo and where it came from and the high school students dismissed the students to go and receive their T-shirts. There were a lot of thank you’s to be heard and every face had a smile on it. The students then spent some time having everyone sign their shirt. The experience was wonderful to see. Students were asking other students to sign their shirts and no one was being excluded. Once everyone had time to sign all the shirts Craig broke the big group into two small groups. In these small groups the students did activities to remember the names of the other students in their group. The students actually remembered a lot of names from the last time they had met. Again there was a lot of smiles and laughter to be heard. As each group wrapped up they were dismissed to line up for lunch, after washing their hands of course.
After lunch Matt split the group into two again. One group went and put their shoes on and headed to another building where Ernie was ready to play ILI Jeopardy with them. The students really enjoy playing this game. It is a wonderful way to have fun and learn.
The other group stayed with Matt for a perspective activity. He began by having all the students sit in a circle and he talked about perspective. After he was done he spread out a number of boxes on the floor and had the students march out 5 or 6 steps. Once they were there they had to lie on their belly. He explained to them that he was going to place something on the ground and they were going to have to guess what it was. However, they could and needed to work together to figure out the object. The students did a great job working together to figure out what was on the ground. After figuring out several objects, Matt led a discussion on perspective. He talked to them about how they can learn to work together with different perspectives to accomplish various tasks.
We ended the day with the students completing their survey. Then, Craig explained to the students that ILI had a present for them and they were very excited. Craig then explained that the present was an ILI T-shirt to give away to someone else. We had T-shirts that were the wrong size and we thought it would be nice for the students to take the idea of “Pay it Forward” and be able to put it into practice.
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #2 Summary
LdF/AVW 4th Grade
9:00-2:00, December 4, 2006 Camp Jorn, Manitowish Waters
LdF Teacher: Sue Adams
AVW Teacher: Patti Farrell
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Marcy Jivery, Ernie St. Germaine, Bob Kovar.
ILI Volunteers: John & Gretchen Spickerman
Today was the first day of our second sessions for area 4th graders to meet. We started the day out in a big circle and talked about the words/concepts that we expect students to adhere to during ILI sessions: respect, pride, fun, communication, safety. The word that students will be working with today is “perspective”. We then broke the group into 4 smaller groups: today, next week, next month and next year. Each group talked about how life will be, or could be, in their time frame. The next month group did a series of skits to illustrate: the first being playing while at ILI, the second was students exchanging phone numbers, the third one student called another, introduced herself as a friend from ILI and invited the other student to her birthday party, and the final act had them all at a birthday party singing happy birthday! After each group presented their group to the bigger group, Craig asked them “why did we do this?” The point was that we wanted students to carry what they learn in ILI beyond what we do here on this day. Craig asked them to bring this to their other friends, into their classrooms and home to their families. It was a fun way for students to understand how we hope ILI transfers beyond the walls of our daily sessions.
We then did a number of high energy activities for them to expend some of their Monday morning energy. We had two wonderful LUHS mentors today helping lead some of these activities. As usual, the younger students gravitated to these high school students like magnets.
We handed out ILI t-shirts to all of the students and spent the rest of the morning doing name activities, rotating students through all the groups so they had a chance to get to know everyone in the group as well as have everyone sign their t-shirts. We had an oven malfunction today so we had to improvise lunch which turned out to be handmade sandwiches for the group-thanks everyone for helping out!
After lunch, Matt talked about perspective and mentioned the big map which is once again in the room. In the past we have had students inquire about their ancestries at home and then we gave them the chance to point out on the map where they are from. We introduced this exercise to them and will do more with this during the spring sessions. Matt continued with an activity: each student grabbed a box and placed them around the room. He had the group spread out to the edges of the room and he gave them various instructions (lie down, close your eyes) and then asked them “what’s in the middle?”. He placed an object in the middle and moved the boxes around so some students could see the object in the middle and others could not. He changed the object in the middle a number of times, each time asking students to move to new positions (e.g. roll 4 times to your left). He then asked students to talk from their positions guessing what the object in the middle was. Students all had different perspectives and he asked them to work together and come to consensus on what the object is. He had them guess, then move a little closer, then go through the guessing again. It became clearer with each move until they all got close enough for them to see what the object really was. Matt then helped the students through a discussion of “perspective” and the importance of how listening to a whole group can help solve problems, especially if we value each person’s perspective on an issue. People can still be friends even if they come from different places.
Other groups this afternoon rotated to another building where Uncle Ernie was conducting the 4th grade Jeopardy! Game. Its really fun to see how much fun the students have playing this game!
We ended the day with evals and then handed out last years ILI t-shirts (that we ordered for tiny children by mistake!) for students to take home to younger brothers and sisters. They were really excited to bring home gifts for younger ones!
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
LdF/NLES 8th Grade
9:00-2:00, October 17, 2006 LUHS School Forest
NLES Teachers: Lynn Szot, Dan Wohlebber
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Marcy Jivery, Ernie St Germaine, Bob Kovar.
Once again the weather forced us inside LUHS school for our session. Todays session went well, partly due to some strategies we employed today to specifically address behavior. Ernie had an excellent idea-he cut up yellow cards and red cards for all the facilitators and teachers this morning. If a student received a yellow card, it was a warning. A red card meant they were going back to school. Just like soccer-and it was effective today, although we thought of some ways we could make it work better in the future. A few yellow cards were given out today and that seemed to work. Our session today followed the same structure as yesterday, large group beginning, small group low level intitiatives during the day and back into the large group for processing and evals at the end of the day. Craig spent some time after lunch with the large group altogether, talking to the students about what they needed to do to have a positive, good experience next year when they enter the high school. He talked about making positive choices, staying out of the “personal dramas” that lead to problems, doing well in their school work, and other attitudes that will empower them to be successful in high school. While it’s a year until they are in high school, you could tell by their level of attention that they were listening to what he had to say and that it made sense.
Matt’s group did a cool exercise (Trustwalk) this morning. Half of the group was blindfolded and the other half was not. The “seeing” people had to lead the “blind” around outside for a walk, while the blind folks had to stay connected. It was fun for the students, but it was also an interesting lesson is trust-the blind folks had to believe that their “leaders” were going to keep them safe and out of harms way. They took really good care of each other and then they switched and the seeing people became blind so they could experience it from the other side. While processing the activity afterwards, Matt helped point out how if they take that kind of care of each other next year when they are in high school, the school will be a safe and fun place to be for everyone.
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
LdF/MHLT/AVW 8th Grade
9:00-2:00, October 16, 2006 LUHS School Forest
LdF Teacher: Lesley Grams
AVW Teacher: Jeremy Jorgenson
MHLT Teacher: Karen Steinmetz
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Marcy Jivery, Ernie St Germaine, Bob Kovar.
We had to move our session today into the LUHS school-it was just too wet out in the school forest from the lingering snow and with a forecast for rain we decided we should play it safe and stay inside today. We like having these students inside the high school building anyways-as it further familiarizes them with the school that will be their “home” for the next 4 years. They get to be a part of the LUHS community for a day-moving through the halls with the rest of the students, getting the feel sights and sounds of high school life.
We started out the day as we have been the last few weeks with introductions and skits put on by smaller groups acting out the ILI concept words for our sessions. It was nice to see some of these smaller groups mix quite readily, not sure if that’s from being in ILI for so long or from playing sports together, or some combination, but its always nice to see that. We spent the rest of the morning in smaller groups getting to remember each others names again and playing some games to mix it up a bit. This being the first time back this year for this group we always like to make sure everyone gets reacquainted.
After lunch, the three groups dispersed again for Afternoon activities. We had various levels of challenges for them (ropes, tarps, low-level group initiatives) but by the end of the day, each group seemed to be having troubles functioning well as a group. We (ILI staff and LUHS student mentors) processed the day after the students all left for a long time today, trying to put our fingers on what we need to address to improve sessions for this age of student. We agreed that we need to change what we are doing to keep students engaged. We have been doing ILI for 9 years and we came to the conclusion today that, with 7th and 8th grade students, we need to think outside of our own “box” that we have created. Our next sessions for middle school students do not start again until after xmas break and between now and then we will try and have some new ideas and strategies to challenge these students, to make ILI fresh for them. This will include talking with students (we are primarily concerned about 7th and 8th graders) and challenging ourselves to create a new approach. We also were dealing today with some behavior issues-students disengaging, acting up, acting out-that we will work with our schools to rectify. We will address these issues tomorrow for our last 8th grade session.
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
9:00-2:00, October 10, 2006 LUHS School Forest
LdF Teacher: John Lohoff, Greg Ziebart
NLES Teacher: Leif Williams
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Ernie St Germaine, Bob Kovar.
We had another great day today out in the school forest. The students came ready to get involved and their enthusiasm made for an excellent day! We started the day out as we did yesterday, with the students in 6 groups doing skits for the larger group of the ILI words and expectations for the day. They did a great job and the skits were really creative and once again, because they really understood the meaning of these words, we had a great day. We then had our LUHS student mentors lead a few large group activities and then we split the group into three smaller groups. The smaller groups spent the rest of the morning working on names, some low initiatives, a trust walk and a cranberry hike, finding wild cranberries in the marsh below the school forest.
The high school students did an excellent job with the younger students again today-our sessions are 100% better when we have high school mentors with us for the day. Their presence as role models is incredibly powerful-if they are having fun, and it looks cool to have fun, then the younger students are right there with them. Their ability to shape the attitudes of the younger students is truly remarkable and the benefits of this dynamic work both ways.
We had a great lunch once again provided by the great staff at LUHS as well as another terrific Uncle Ernie soup of the day. After lunch, Ernie talked to the group about the importance of caring for Mother Earth by picking up after ourselves. The afternoon saw the groups split into their three smaller groups again and continued to work on collaborative efforts and more group building activities. Lots of fun today!
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
LdF/MHLT/AVW 7th Grade 9:00-2:00, October 9, 2006 LUHS School Forest
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Session #1 Summary
LdF/NLES 6th Grade
9:00-2:00, October 3, 2006 Camp Jorn
NLES Teachers: Betty Forster, Cindy Burnett
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Ernie St Germaine, Bob Kovar.
Guests From The Japan-Wisconsin Education Connection: (Japanese Teachers): Mr. Keisuke Endo, Ms. Hiromi Ogita, Ms. Sayuri Taba, Ms. Tamayo Hamada, Ms. Teruko Yano, Mr. Kei Konno, Mr. Yukihiro Kasai, Mr. Koichi Hidaka.
(Wisconsin DPI Japan-Wisconsin Education Connection Director): Pam Delfosse.
(Interpreter): Masami Nii Glines
This was a very special ILI session for our 6th grade students. Not only did we have another beautiful fall day out in the LUHS school forest, but we were honored to have a delegation of teachers from Japan join our session today. Former LUHS graduate Pam Delfosse contacted us awhile ago inquiring if she could bring a group of teachers from Japan through a program she runs at DPI to visit an ILI session. Pam spent a year in high school (through Rotary) in Japan and she is quite fluent in the language and very knowledgeable of Japanese culture. She is the Director of the Japan-Wisconsin Education Connection that facilitates bringing Japanese teachers to Wisconsin each year to learn about education here and to share their experiences of education in Japan. This unique and wonderful program is an international education program of Japan’s Ministry of Education, in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction & WEA Professional Development Academy. After this week these teachers will be going off on their own to live with host families across the state where they have placements in schools. They will do this until December so they have made quite a commitment in their lives. It’s a great program and today we were really excited to have them all here to share a day in ILI.
We started the day out before the students arrived, talking with the Japanese teachers (their interpreter, Masami, was just amazing!) about what ILI is about and what they could expect for today. When the students came, Craig welcomed everyone and we learned how to say “hello” and “good morning” in Japanese and a number of other languages (Ojibwe, German, Bulgarian, Spanish) and then we went around the circle and the adults introduced themselves to the group. We then went through our expectations and words for the day as we have been doing the past few weeks and then we did some large group games to loosen everyone up. The teachers from Japan all joined in wholeheartedly-it was wonderful how they participated in everything today-the kids really appreciated and enjoyed their enthusiasm! We then split the group into three smaller groups and each group went their separate ways for the rest of the morning. In these small groups, the Japanese teachers explained how they received their names, the meaning of their names, the meaning of some English names in Japanese, how their own names look written in Japanese and what the written characters represent. It was really interesting and everyone learned a lot! The groups also did some reviewing of their own names since this was the first session for the year.
Lunch once again featured Uncle Ernie’s “Roadkill Soup”-todays special ingredients were mice. Uncle Ernie can really get some of the kids to make some awful faces as they look carefully through their soupbowls for things like “mice eyelashes-oooh those are sooo good!” After lunch Ernie talked about the importance of picking up after ourselves and keeping the school forest clean through a wonderful story about how crows are the ones who clean up after all the animals. He said that sometimes when he is scouting the roads in the early mornings for the next batch of soup that he sometimes has to fight with the crows for the best Roadkill.
After lunch, it was back into smaller groups again for challenge initiatives using tarps like we did yesterday. Each group leader varied the rules of engagement to try and suit their group dynamics and in the end the message was the same-that trying to accomplish something through teamwork, cooperation, respect and communication was the most important lesson. When asked “How was this activity like life?”, students were able to grasp the concept very well. One student likened it to trying to understand his math teacher who didn’t always give all the answers or all of the directions for an easy answer. We’re very proud of these groups when they use each other to solve problems is such a good way. That’s what ILI is all about. We learned a Japanese proverb today that was very fitting (paraphrasing): failure is the last step that comes before success. Meaning there really is no such thing as failure as long as you keep trying-which these students do very well.
Thank you to Pam and all of the teachers and our wonderful interpreter for making today a great learning experience for us all. We all made new friends today-our common love of education and teaching being our real language. We didn’t have to fully understand each others words because the language of making children smile is universal, and these teachers all brought smiles today.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
LdF/MHLT/AVW 6th Grade
9:00-2:00, October 2, 2006 Camp Jorn
LdF Teachers: John Lohoff, Jeff Fieck
AVW Teacher: Blaine Wauters
MHLT Teacher: Pam Schoville
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Ernie St Germaine, Bob Kovar.
Special Guests: Alice’s mom and dad!!! The McFarlanes from Sauk City.
This was the first of our 6th grade sessions and we held it in the LUHS school forest. Today was one of those spectacular fall days-the trees were in full color and the group came full of energy to match the day. With temps in the 70’s, no bugs (except the occasional pesky hornet) and just enough wind to blow leaves off of the trees for the kids to chase, it was a picture perfect day. We started out in our large group and Craig, Matt and Alice doing their outdoor theatre skits of our words for the day. Lacking a board to draw on Matt used his stick people out of, real sticks! The rest of the morning we spent time reviewing names and doing some activities to break the ice and get things rolling. We broke the groups into 3 smaller groups and got them ready for some real challenges after lunch. Uncle Ernie made a great batch of “Roadkill Soup” and many students had to think for a few moments as they heard the soup included porcupine, quills and all!
After lunch, the groups worked on a number of challenge initiatives that tested their groups. The groups were given a tarp which they were told they all had to stand on-and without taking their feet off the tarp-they had to turn the tarp over. This was quite a challenge and a bit frustrating for most of the groups. One group was really working hard to figure it out and somehow they decided they needed to make a pyramid on the tarp first-so they proceeded to try this, over and over again. They were having a great time with each other, laughing, helping each other, rebuilding their pyramid over and over only to have it crash down each time. Finally, Craig reminded them what they were supposed to accomplish (turn the tarp over while on it) and they tried it again. This time they listened to one boy who had said about 15 times that he had an idea. They very nearly accomplished the challenge this time. Craig then processed the activity and asked the students to raise their hands if they felt they had failed. Most of them raised their hands. He then asked them to remember the words we had started the day with (safety, communication, cooperation, fun, respect, pride) and said that in his eyes they had actually greatly succeeded. He talked about how important trying is-that it’s the journey of effort that counts. After this, he asked again how many students felt they had failed and most felt they had succeeded. This was a great group-lots of kindness even while frustrated and the fun they had trying to build that pyramid was simply contagious.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
LdF/NLES 5th Grade
9:00-2:00, September 29, 2006 Camp Jorn
NLES Teacher: Beth Ehrlenborn
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Ernie St Germaine, Bob Kovar.
ILI Volunteers: Jeanne Olp, Pam Anthony
We started the day out in our usual way for this set of sessions-using a bit of theatre to illustrate our words and expectations for the day (safety, respect, pride, communication, cooperation, and fun). Todays group is much smaller than Monday which makes for much better group sizes in our smaller groups today. After introductions and some initial icebreakers, we went outside for some high energy activities to get the bugs out. We then spent the remainder of the morning in three small groups relearning names. We have two LUHS students here today and they stepped up in a big way to help facilitate a number of activities today. As always, having high school mentors at our ILI sessions is really powerful-as the younger students really look up to them and follow their every move. There is also a level of communication that occurs between high school and elementary students that is unmatched.
After lunch, we continued in our smaller groups for some low level group initiatives. We explained to the students that as they grow up in ILI we will be challenging them with more difficult tasks. We talked about how these challenges will help them learn how to work together to accomplish great things as they get older. One group’s challenge (“Warpspeed”) had them sitting in a circle with their feet in the middle. They had to pass around a water bottle from one person to the next with only their legs. The group was really up for this and they improved their times from over 30 seconds to just over 7 seconds! They were really having fun and their screams of excitement HAD to have been heard by most dogs in the county. The next challenge (“Monster”) had students lined up against the wall-they were allowed to use the number of hands and feet equal to the number of people in their group (e.g. if there was 10 people then they could only use 10 hands and 10 feet as a whole group to get across the room). To make it harder, the group was told they could use LESS numbers of hands and feet. This required a lot of communication (listening and talking), coordination (they had to stay connected) and imagination! Having 10 people and only being allowed to use 8 hands and 8 feet required the students to carry each other, stay connected, some had to walk on their hands…you get the idea! The really cool thing was they eventually did it! While they were processing the activity, they thought that it was impossible to do at first-but after listening to each other, connecting and working (cooperating) together, they were able to accomplish it. Students were able to explain the words we started the day out with to describe how they accomplish this challenge. Craig asked his students to explain how this challenge was like life-and the students responded in many ways, but all relating it to different aspects of their lives. They decided that it is easier to get through things with the help of friends. When we connect we can solve many of life’s problems.
This was a really good day, the groups really worked well today and everyone had fun!
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Intercultural Leadership Initiative 2006-2007 Session #1 Summary LdF/MHLT/AVW 5th Grade 9:00-2:00, September 25, 2006 Camp Jorn
Today was the first time for the 5th graders from these schools to meet. They came into the lodge this morning with a TON of energy. This was a very large group as well with 62 students! We started out by introducing the six words/concepts we wanted them to focus on today and once again illustrated these words with skits and action. After this, we had a great round of “Captain Says” with the new rule that you needed to seek out students from a different school if you needed more than 1 person to complete one of the commands. We then went outside where there was ample room to move to try and get more of the energy out-hoping that the cool morning would help! We broke the group into smaller groups, did some activities and then came back inside for snack. After snack we broke into three small groups and worked on names-emphasizing the importance of knowing each other by name through a series of fun activities.
We served 29 pizzas today-and only a few crumbs were left! After lunch, Matt told a story about “Connections” by illustrating his story with a style of art that can only be described as Mattastic. The point of the story was that we’re all important and connected, even if we’re different. We then broke the group again into three smaller groups and did some low level initiatives. These included solving challenges like having everyone in the circle touch a ball and timing it to see how fast it can be done. The groups each approached this in a unique way but in the end they all were able to work together, by moving closer to each other so the ball wouldn’t have to travel so far. Another initiative was the “Human Knot” where small groups get tangled up by reaching hands across a circle and then have to untangle themselves. This activity can be frustrating. We will revisit this activity again later this year and certainly next year they will be amazed at how much easier this will be as they develop. Craig used the “frustration factor” in his group to point out that failing at something isn’t always bad, particularly if you use it as a learning experience. He distinguished the difference between not being able to accomplish a task, and quitting. We’re trying to relate the importance of trying even if things seem difficult or frustrating and when he explained it this way the students seemed to really get it. We also mixed in some other activities as the day came to a close to help keep up with the high energy level in their groups. We finished the day by processing in their small groups and then coming together for evals and dismissal.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
LdF/AVW 4th Grade
9:00-2:00, September 22, 2006 Camp Jorn
LdF Teacher: Sue Adams
AVW Teacher: Lisa McMahon
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane.
ILI Volunteers: John & Gretchen Spickerman
Today was the first time for the 4th graders from LdF and AVW to meet. The introduction part of the morning was similar to the previous days. When it came time for the students to show agreement by rolling around on the floor, the teachers even joined in. As we moved into “getting the bugs out” games, we made an adjustment for one of the students who just got a cast off her foot and is not supposed to run around. So our games turned into speed walking games. There was still enough movement to get the bugs out and lots of noise.
Craig played the number assumption game with the students after snack time. It was fun to watch the light bulbs go on, and see them share their new found insight with the person next to them.
One of the name games involved tossing a ball around the circle in a certain pattern while saying the name of the person you are tossing to. We timed it to see how fast they could go. At first it was 7.9 seconds. We tried several times to get it down and each attempt resulted in a faster time. The students wanted to keep getting closer to bring our time down more. So we ended up all in a tight circle and were able to get the time down to 3.3 seconds! Another group had the idea to put the ball in the middle of everyone, and then to have everyone touch the ball at the same time. Great idea! It was so fast that we could not capture it with the stop watch.
Before lunch, Craig introduced “Attitude of Gratitude” to the students. “Today I am thankful for…family, our transportation here, meeting people we will see in high school, making new friends, getting to be here at ILI.” During the lunch time, two girls who just met today were drawing on the white board. They called us over to look at it. There were two faces drawn full of opposites (boy/girl, circle vs. triangle face, straight vs. wild hair, red vs. black color, circle vs. triangle nose, one had antennaes and one did not). The picture was labeled “upisites, but still friends”. They said that this is what ILI is all about. Exactly!
Matt told his story about assumptions, and then the students wanted to hear more of his stories. We moved outside to run around. It was cloudy and drippy outside today so we only stayed out long enough to run around, but then came back inside instead of doing the word scavenger hunt. Once inside, Matt had set up a new game, which does not even have a name yet. Matt told the students to be thinking of ideas for what we can call the game since they are the first ones to play it. We split into three groups and formed lines. On the other side of the room were three separate large puzzles that had to be put together (drawn by Matt). Each student ran over to their group’s puzzle, flipped one piece over and brought back the information from the picture to their group. Each group had to try to guess what was represented by the puzzle. Students came back with reports of: “it looks like a plant, I think there is a tree, I saw a flag, it might be a canoe…” Once all the pieces were flipped over, the whole group went to the puzzle to try and put it all together and figure out what it was. Once all the groups had their puzzle put together, we brought them all together to finish the large puzzle. Individually, the puzzles represented France, England and the Ojibwe Nation. The pictures overlapped onto the three puzzles, showing the connections between the three as they traded and shared food. The students did a great job with all of their guesses, and working together to put it all together. Matt asked what they thought we should call the game. These are the suggestions that they had.
- Fun Around the World, by Cody
- Trading Puzzle, by Jerome
- Nationwide Puzzle, by Courtney
- All of the Worlds, by Katie
- Race Puzzle, by William
- Place Race, by Emily
- The Greatest Puzzle Race, by Josh
- Get the Picture, by Ellie
The last activity of the day was crossed-uncrossed. Craig passed around noodles, and the students had to figure out when they could pass them crossed or uncrossed. It was frustrating for the students. But then with some more clues, they began to see the bigger picture. We wrapped up with evaluation and told the students they got to be the teachers and give us a grade. They liked that idea. As they walked out, they kept asking when they get to come together again, and said that December is too long to wait. One girl said that she was making an assumption that the next time was going to be fun.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
Session #1 Summary
LdF/NLES 4th Grade
9:00-2:00, September 20, 2006 Camp Jorn
NLES Teacher: Jean Kaziak
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane.
ILI Volunteers: Dick & Joan Fahning
Today was the first time for the 4th graders from LdF and NLES to meet. They entered the room with lots of energy. Craig started the day by having the students sit in a circle where he introduced the expectations and words of ILI (safety, respect, pride, communication, cooperation and fun). The students had to guess the word ‘safety’ as Craig, Matt and Alice did two short skits showing physical and emotional safety. The students had lots of guesses and kept shouting them out. Once all the words had been explained, the students had to show agreement by grabbing their toes and roll around on the floor, a very comical sight.
During snack time, Craig played the number assumption game with the students. They had to guess the number he was making with the objects on the floor. The instructions were that he was going to make a number on the floor. The students all started off looking at the objects he placed on the floor. Little by little, the students caught on that they only had to look at his fingers showing a number each time. Towards the end, Craig threw the objects behind him, and placed his fingers on the floor. About half of the students ran behind him to look at how the objects lay on the floor J Craig asked the students if they had heard of the saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” One girl responded that you should at least read the description on the back cover.
We split into 3 groups to do different activities to help us all learn the new names. Once the students had rotated through all the activities, we all came together to play the “Blanket Name Game”. It was fun to watch the student’s faces as the blanket dropped and they had to quickly think of the name of the person on the other side. There were several frozen tongues. For the last round, all the students on both sides moved close to the blanket, so that when it was dropped, both sides were surprised to see all the other students close up, which brought lots of laughter.
Before lunch, Craig introduced “Attitude of Gratitude” to the students. “Today I am thankful for…making new friends, being here, pizza, my new cat, meeting new people.”
During lunch it was fun to look out and see students eating with the other school. There were little groups spread out. In one corner there was a boy from each school, happily eating pizza together. After lunch, Matt told a story about assumptions.
We moved outside to enjoy the blue sky and sunshine. We played partner tag, where you can only tag your partner, and they can only tag you. Matt introduced the word scavenger hunt- and reminded them that they did not have to see the item, but could also touch, taste, smell or hear it. As we were breaking into small groups, two boys from the same school told their leader that they were not supposed to be in the same group because they do not get along. We talked about giving it a try during this activity, and they were willing to try. The two boys did great! They were linked arm in arm throughout the whole time as we wandered around to find different items. They never even tried to separate. When all the groups joined back together to count up the total number of points, one group was far ahead all the others with 150 points. They were thinking outside the box, and drew in the dirt any item that they could not find.
To wrap-up the day, Craig talked about the importance of hearing from the students and what they thought of the day. The students filled out an evaluation and also had to give us a grade and the reason we deserved that grade. We received all A+’s. The only variance was on the number of plus signs following the ‘A’. One boy came up and told us that he had put down 37 pluses. Some of the reasons for our grade were:
- “Because the people here were nice to me.”
- “Because I had a lot of fun and a lot of friendship.”
- “Because you were nice to us and helped us make new friends.”
- “You helped us learn the fun way.”
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Session #1 Summary
LdF/MHLT 4th Grade
9:00-2:00, September 19, 2006 Camp Jorn
LDF Teacher: Patti Maulson
MHLT Teacher: Judi DiMattina
ILI Facilitators: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Alice McFarlane, Bob Kovar.
ILI Volunteers: John and Gretchen Spickerman
Community Guests: LeRoy Cardinal, Desiree Roffers, Mary Roffers, Paris Latka.
This was the first elementary session of the 2006-07 school year and we had a great beginning to our 9th year of programming. We started the day out with Craig, Matt and Alice leading some activities as the students got off their buses to loosen everyone up and get the ants out. We then invited them into our circle and introduced the adults in the room who welcomed all of the students into ILI. We then introduced the expectations of the session day-various concept/words that we base all of our sessions on. This time however, ILI staff was a bit more creative using various skits, drawing and even singing (Craig you ROCK) with the help of students to visually help paint a picture of how we expected students to act and treat each other. It was great and the kids all really seemed to understand these concepts much better, and with much more enthusiasm, than before where we just talked about the words. We talked about how what we needed students to do in order to get the most out of the day today as well as consequences if they didn’t cooperate.
We then did some large group activities-including an age-old favorite “Captain Says” to round out the morning before snack. This really was a great group today and they were mixing right away during their snack. After snack, we split them into three smaller groups and each group worked on a different round of activities to help students learn each others names. The groups rotated around. We then had them come back into a large group for the “Blanket Name Game” where students are divided into 2 teams and 1 person from each group is chosen to be kneeling behind a blanket, which when it is dropped, the first person to say the name of the person across the blanket wins and they get the other person on their team. This is really a fun activity, especially when a teacher sneaks in there for a real challenge! We finished the morning out in the large group with students trying to name everyone’s name in the circle-they were amazingly good at this! Before lunch we did an “attitude of gratitude” where students completed the sentence “today I am thankful for..”. Lots of students said they were thankful to have a chance to make new friends.
After lunch Matt told a story about how making an assumption can lead to bad things. Craig then had the group in a large circle and he did an activity to help students understand the concept “assumptions”. He led them through a challenge activity where he is “making a symbol” on the floor between the numbers 1-10. He has various noodles, stuffed animals on the ground and then he places his hands on the ground next to this and asks what the number is. The trick of this activity is that students need to step back and see the big picture to figure it out.
We then went outside for the next activity which was some running around to get the bugs out and a word scavenger hunt-where teachers helped as we put the students in very small groups of 4 and gave them a sheet of paper with names of things they might find in the outdoors in both Ojibwe and English. They had to stay physically connected in their small groups during this activity.
We then went back inside where Craig led another challenge activity “Crossed-Uncrossed” where each person has to say how they are receiving the 2 noodles from the person next to them-either “crossed” or “uncrossed”. As you may have figured out, the activity doesn’t necessarily have to do with the 2 noodles. This is another activity that helped illustrate the concept of assumptions.
Finally, we processed the day in the large circle, discussing all of the activities and concepts. We then asked the students to fill out an evaluation-Craig told the students “this is where you get to give us a grade”. As they were handing them in one boy had marked down a “B+” on the bottom of the eval. I told him next time we’ll try and make it an “A” and he responded, completely serious and caring “don’t feel bad-that B+ is REALLY good!” Before they all left on their buses there were students exchanging phone numbers-a great start to another year in ILI.
Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative