Intercultural Leadership Initiative

2005-2006

LUHS Junior/Senior Summary

December 14, 2005

ILI Staff: Craig Kerr, Matt White, Ernie St. Germaine

Craig opened the session welcoming and thanking everyone for attending. He talked about the upcoming schedule and Christmas party on Wednesday. Before leaving, the students signed up for whichever lunch period they would attend.

The group formed a circle and Craig began reviewing the concepts of what an ILI facilitator does. One student asked, “What is a facilitator? ” Craid said, “Great question,” then went on to briefly explain what facilitators in ILI do. Craig then asked for a volunteer and Jim immediately stood up. Jim went over to the other side of the room with Matt and discussed leading the group in a low balance beam activity. Craig demonstrated how a facilitator introduces an activity and explains clearly, demonstrates, then initiates an ILI activity. The circle then began “toe tag” which seems to be a favorite of all ages. When Jim was ready, the circle was then commanded to stand up and go to the low balance beam and assemble on the beam according to height. He then changed the assembly requirement to shoe size. The students assembled by some leaning down on the floor with only their hands touching while others walked over their feet. They had to communicate their shoe sizes with each other in order to complete the task.

While the group was doing this task, Craig met with Jenna and reviewed the next activity that she would lead.

The group then rejoined the circle on the mat. Jenna then facilitated the next activity of partner tag. She had everyone find a partner preferable someone you do not know very well, and someone of the opposite sex. Once partnered, the group was instructed to introduce themselves and ask each other’s favorite color. The partners then played “rock/scissors/paper.” The successful partner gets to run as soon as the other partner sits on the mat and when ready, commands “go!” The other partner must get up and chase the other and when tagged, that partner must look at his/her toes, turn in a circle three times, then locate, chase, and try to tag the other partner.

After this activity went for several minutes, Craig called “freeze!” and everyone sat down in a circle again. Craig and Matt reviewed many of the do’s and don’ts of facilitating and things they must consider carefully when working with younger children. He reminded them that when he does something like “rock/paper/scissors” he does not say “the Loser must…” He explained that this is a negative word and we should not bring focus to that kind of language.

Craig then had Ashley and Felicia briefly explain their experiences with serving as student mentors for the recent 6th grade ILI sessions.

Next Jr. Sr. regular ILI Session is Wednesday, January 11 during Home Room. ILI will host a Christmas party in the Distance Learning Room on Wednesday, December 21 during the 5A or 5B lunch periods. ILI Students and all ILI volunteers and helpers are invited to attend and enjoy a pizza party and celebrate the upcoming holiday season.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

Top of Page

Intercultural Leadership Initiative

2005-2006

LUHS Junior/Senior Meeting #4 Summary

November 16, 2005

ILI Staff: Matt White, Ernie St. Germaine, Craig Kerr, Bob Kovar

Craig opened the session by welcoming everyone and thanking them for attending. The group formed a circle on the floor for the session.

Craig discussed the upcoming grade school ILI sessions and handed out permission and consent forms for the students who will serve as student mentors for these sessions.

The group discussed the LUHS SEL program and how it is working in the Home Room sessions. It has its positive attributes and some weaknesses as well.

The Juniors then met with Matt and Craig and continued a discussion on serving as mentors and facilitators of ILI sessions. The group did some role playing with one person serving as the facilitator of an activity that they chose to do with the group. The rest of the group served as 6th grade students

The Seniors met with Ernie and Bob and began a brief discussion on a history of the Lac du Flambeau Tribe that Ernie will teach. He reviewed some of the exciting ways we will use to teach the course including having the students take an active role in the research in making a game of Jeopardy history. The group also began to think about an idea to create a “family feud game and survey LUHS students.

Next Jr. Sr. ILI Session is Wednesday, December 14 during Home Room.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

Top of Page

Intercultural Leadership Initiative

2005-2006

LUHS Junior/Senior Meeting #3 Summary

October 26, 2005

ILI Staff: Ernie St. Germaine, Bob Kovar

ILI Administration: Mike Dailey

Ernie opened the session welcoming and thanking everyone for attending. He began by introducing himself, then each person in the circle introduced themselves and told what grade they represented. He placed the hand cards of the five principles of ILI on the floor in the middle of the circle the students formed. He invited the students to come forward and select one of the cards. In turn, each student spoke of the purpose of each principle. The principles which are emphasized in each and every ILI session with elementary sessions include: Safety, Fun, Respect, Cooperation and Communication. The students did an excellent job of explaining the principles and why they are important to us. One more principle, Pride, was added by Kyah.

Ernie then introduced Mike Dailey who began a very good discussion with the students explaining the involvement and commitment of Lakeland Union High School with ILI. A wonderful question and answer period followed his brief talk. The students talked about why ILI is important and how it has impacted their lives.

Mr. Dailey then asked if they had a magic wand and had the ability to make changes with it, what changes would they make with the ILI program. A student answered, “we would have more ILI!” He asked how that would be accomplished and more students offered ways that this might be possible including getting together on their own, without staff or teachers needing to be involved such as during lunch, after school, weekends, summers.

Another student suggested inviting their teachers to the sessions so those teachers could see what we are doing, what we are accomplishing in ILI. Everyone agreed this is an excellent idea.

Another student asked if it would be possible to conduct a workshop, or conference like the one the ILI students did in Madison last year. The student explained how effective that workshop was for the people who attended. The student felt that this would be a very good way to demonstrate to the community how ILI works and how good it is. He suggested that by having the students attend the DPI conference last year, the message we gave to those educators who participated in our session was much more effective. He was right.

Another student suggested that they be allowed to invite their homerooms to and ILI session to be able to demonstrate how ILI works and how good it is.

And finally, a student said “ILI helps me feel good about myself and I don’t judge others so I know they don’t judge me.”

Mr. Dailey discussed how students have the ability to have an impact on other people even if they are not involved in ILI. They can be change agents and be very much involved in the “selling and promotion, the marketing” of ILI and the good things that are happening in our school.

Some senior students stayed after the meeting and expressed their interest in taking the lead in planning an honor pow wow for graduating students next spring. It was decided by them that we would have an organizational meeting next Wednesday, November 2 in the Student Services Center at the high school after school.

Next Jr. Sr. ILI Session is Wednesday, November 16 during Home Room.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

Top of Page

Intercultural Leadership Initiative

2005-2006

LUHS Junior/Senior Meeting #2 Summary

October 12, 2005

ILI Staff: Matt White, Ernie St. Germaine, Alice McFarlane, Craig Kerr, Bob Kovar

We have been frustrated trying to get into a regular schedule of meeting with our LUHS ILI students. This was only the second meeting of our jr/sr group and we have met only once with our freshman/sophomore group. The reason we had so few students today was that there was no announcement to remind students of the session. We will be meeting with LUHS administration on Wednesday next week to try and figure this all out. On one hand, its wonderful that we have a time slot this year for our ILI sessions, but so far we have not been able to meet near enough to accomplish what we are hoping to do. There have also been a number of other things scheduled during this activity period (field trips, testing, career day) that have made it really hard for students to attend. We will be printing up calendars for all of our ILI students and try and distribute them to everyone. We will also begin posting ILI sessions on the big ILI board in the commons area and we will try to keep encouraging LUHS to make announcements on mornings of our sessions-that does seem to really help.

We still had a few students show up today so we did talk about what we were going to talk about with the group today: facilitating elementary sessions. LUHS ILI student mentors really make a huge difference for our elementary students at their sessions and we would like to actively train and prepare them for these experiences. We also talked about the SEL programming that was going on in homerooms and suggested to our students how they might be able to really help out with those activities. Everyone seemed really willing and excited about the possibilities-now its up to us to make sure we work it out with LUHS so we can have the time to work with the students.

Next Jr. Sr. ILI Session is Wednesday, October 26 during Home Room.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

Top of Page

Intercultural Leadership Initiative

2005-2006

LUHS Junior/Senior Meeting #1 Summary

September 28, 2005

ILI Staff: Matt White, Ernie St. Germaine, Craig Kerr, Bob Kovar

Matt opened the session by welcoming everyone and thanking them for attending. The group formed a circle on the floor for the session.

Matt then introduced himself using Uncle Ernie’s “Hug a Judge” owl. He passed the owl to his left and each person in the circle then introduced themselves and told something special about themselves.

Matt and Ernie then lead a group activity by rolling out a long piece of paper. Each student then sat in a circle, or laid by the paper. Each student was given a crayon. Uncle Ernie then instructed them about the activity. He told them to look across the paper to the person across from them. Focus on some part of their face. He then told them to place their crayon down on the paper someplace that represented that spot on the person’s face. Each student was then challenged to begin drawing the person’s face, without looking at the paper and without lifting the crayon off the paper. It is called a contour drawing. After a few minutes, the students were then asked to change crayon colors with another person. They were then challenged to hold the crayon in their “non-dominant” hand. They were told to begin, and to do the same drawing, over the top of the first drawing, this time using their non-dominant hand.

Matt then introduced the circle hand tap game. Each person lies on their stomach, facing into the circle. They place their right arm over the top of the next person’s left arm. The place their left arm under the other person’s right arm until the entire circle is joined. One person starts by tapping a hand and the tap goes to the right, all the way around the circle. The challenge is to remember to tap, only when it is your turn. It is very challenging when your hand is over or under the next person’s hand. Then, a new challenge is introduced. When one person taps twice, the direction of the tapping changes. Eventually, a second tap is introduced, going in the other direction.

Both activities, the contour drawing, and the circle tap game require the person to begin to use and integrate their right brain and their left brain activity. Both activities stimulate areas of the brain, sometimes areas that are seldom used. When a person learns to integrate both sides, they discover that they are able to accomplish things beyond their imaginations.

Some students have the belief that they simply cannot do something, like contour drawings, or tapping in turn. They struggle with the activity, protesting that they “cannot do it.”

The Juniors then met with Craig, Matt and Bob. The talked about the importance of having high school students act as mentors and facilitators for the younger middle school ILI students. It was pointed out how much more effectively a younger person will identify with a high school students rather than an adult and how all change in society comes from the youth up, not from the adults down. Tiffany shared her experience of mentoring at last week’s 8th grade session which everyone really enjoyed hearing-she ended by saying the whole experience was “really cool”. Craig said that our expectations of students wanting to be mentors were high; no poor grades or behaviors. He then asked students who wanted to be mentors and get training in leading activities to sign up-nearly the whole group did!

The seniors met with Uncle Ernie and did some brief processing of the contour drawing activity. Some of them discovered that they were thinking entirely different things about the other person when using one hand versus the other hand. The seniors then also worked more on the contour drawing by labeling it: “ILI Contour Drawings.” Uncle Ernie reminded them to remember to use both hemispheres of the brain in the task and to even use both hands. The poster is exhibited on the wall outside the ILI office at LUHS.

The High School ILI sessions all take place during Home Room on Wednesdays from 9:40 to 10:20. The complete ILI calendar and schedule, including the HS sessions and the grade school sessions is now complete and available if any person is interested.

Next Jr. Sr. ILI Session is Wednesday, October 12 during Home Room.

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

Top of Page