BEING RESPONSIBLE WORLD CITIZEN NOW!

How can it be that every 3.5 seconds a person dies of hunger and WE HAVE enough food to feed the world? This is a question that the Pattimura Grade 5 students have been asking themselves, each other and their teachers. Java Feeding the Millions is a unit of study they have been working on for the last 4 weeks. This unit was introduced on a wiki that can be found at: http://javafeedingthemillions.pbworks.com/FrontPage
If you are an interested in logging on to this site, please contact rpolonsky@jisedu.or.id
Here is their task:

Dear JIS Grade 5 Students:
My name is Ibu Siti Pattimura. I work as an aid agency called FOOD FOR ALL or YAYASAN MAKANAN UNTUK SEMUA (YMUS) and we are trying to feed the world. As an aid agency we are looking for a group of experienced researchers to create a compelling "story" about hunger.
The author, Daniel Pink writes, "Stories can be healing." Throughout the ages children have been told stories by adults at times when they need guidance in order to cope with a difficult life situation. Stories teach us what is right and wrong. Stories are how we learn. YMUS would like your research group to create a compelling true "story" of hunger. We will use your presentation to:

1. Convince large companies and governments to improve conditions which lead to hunger.
2. Convince the public to give generously when they donate to our cause.

We are interested in hiring the research team that best expresses the facts of hunger in a compelling and empathetic way that speaks to all who view your presentation. YMUS knows that there is enough food to feed the world population, but still many men, women and children are hungry everyday.
You have 4 weeks to create a project to present to the Board of Directors of the Yayasan Makanan Untuk Semua.  Your teachers will divide you into groups for collaboration. See the pamphlet from the library about the "Six Easy Steps for Research Projects" to help you with this process.
This presentation must include the following information:
Background: This is where the team has to provide general information on hunger based on research that they have conducted during their inquiry. This portion of the presentation should demonstrate that you understand:

    * What hunger is?
    * The different causes of hunger
    * Why, despite there being enough food, people are still going hungry?
    * The different types of programs that are currently being used
    * Hunger from the perspective of person who you are trying to help
  
After you have researched your background information your group will decide on how they will present the information using appropriate visual media to engage your audience. Your team should include innovative suggestions of how to solve this global issue but understanding the steps may start small.
Remember the saying: “If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day, if you teach a man to fish they will eat for a life time.”
OR
“If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. If you teach a man to learn, you feed him for a lifetime and he doesn't have to only eat fish. ..."
OR
They don't need to be taught to fish-instead, they need an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty. (by Shawn http://uncultured.com/)
In four weeks time the Board of Directors  of YMUS will be here to experience your presentations.
Good Luck!
Sincerely Yours,
Ibu Siti Pattimura

The wiki has resources that include websites, videos and books to assist students in their research. It also includes the rubric on creativity and has information about how to research. The Pattimura TeLMS (technology & library media services) as a team have decided to introduce the first NETS-S standard on creativity. We want to thank Bindu Bammi a MS art teacher for her useful rubric that we changed slightly. The rubric was introduced to all the classes and gave them the vision of what to strive for.
The excitement and learning has been escalating over the last few weeks as students learning research skills, new technologies, how to collaborate and most important how can they be responsible world citizens!

Assignment 1a Done and Gone: Where is the Champagne?

The BIG day has come...our collaborative Assignment 1a has been sent and is done. I sadly said a good bye to Helen, Melanie and Rachel today. Skype will be a great tool when we can actually share a glass on champagne on line! I know we won't be talking as much as we have over the last month but I hope to be able to mine their skills during my work at CSU. I have gained deep respect for them all and know that they can help me as a learner.

It was a journey that ended in what I felt was an excellent product. Our power point is clear, creative and the best part is that I learned a great deal. I know that the final power point was nothing in comparison to the process. Our collaborative skills grew as we moved from a congenial group 23 to a collaborative team 23. Our team was able to trust each other, manage cognitive conflict, and hold one another accountability. We were all able to set aside our individual needs and focus on what was best for the team.

I felt that I had a large impact on the team. I was able to move us out of our chaos state and refocus our direction and energy. This was definitely a creative process that evolved from my reading. Once the idea was there, I had this incredible fear that one of the team members would not agree to move in this direction. I was relieved the next day when I got the go ahead for moving forward. I can imagine that this could be a real conflict when one member has a creative revelation and someone in the group disagrees. I guess that is where compromise come in to play.

This project was a simulation of authentic learning. I hope that I can create similar types of learning opportunities for my students to be able to move through a process and learn as much as I have. Thank you all!

Group 23----TEAM 23

I am ready to collaborate with others internationally. It has been a great experience and my learning has been tripled by the 3 women I worked with. I have felt very honored to be working with group 23. They are people who have many traits of leadership. I am just now getting down to the second part of my assignment and wondering why I can't have them help me. We all have our strengths and I just know that one of them can write a critically evaluative annotated bibliography, while I would be great at the reflective practice.

Beck and Yeager's (reading 6) differentiate between a group and a team in their article called Making Teams Work: An Underused Window of Opportunity. A group is a number of people who may be heading in the same direction but they have different goals and missions, where a team shares goals and works together towards them. Our group 23 is now disbanded and will now be known as TEAM 23! We went through the different stages of Beck and Yeager's development from forming, focusing, performing, and leveling. At Jakarta International School we call this forming, norming, storming and performing to re-forming. I am sure this has been stolen from someone but I am not sure who and I added re-forming. I would have to say that TEAM 23 didn't norm formally, but we had our norms.

OUR NORMS: Communicate and being in touch was very important. Meeting times were sacred. Sharing responsibilities a must. Do what you say. Work with each others strengths. I would say there are more but those are ones that come to me quickly.

I have come to believe after all the reading I have been doing that all teachers that learn and share their knowledge to improve student learning are leaders.

Here is a great website known as the Teacher Leaders Network... http://www.teacherleaders.org/

The Collaborative Way: Bringing Down the Walls

We had a marathon meeting last evening that lasted for 2 hours and 26 minutes. I can't quite run a triathlon in that time but close.

This seemed to be a coming out of the chaos and creating more consensus meeting. I am not sure why it happened and can only think that it was either due to the fact that we just wanted to move on or that others felt validated and heard and were willing to move on. I can't really decided if it really matters whether I know the reason or not, or if I should just be glad that we are moving in a positive direction.

Guidelines for Action:

1. Know Thyself

2. Learn more-I embrace this one

3. Maintain Integrity

4. Persevere

5. Create a vision: A School Library that is best for the world will develop students who can learn, unlearn, and re-learn.

6. Think big, start small

7. Focus on something important, like Instructional Leadership.

8. Decide what you are not going to do. Like take 5 hours of someone's class because they are out. I am not a substitute.

9. Build networks

Carl Glickman tells a great story in the conclusion, learn it.

After reading Burdenuk's article called LEADERSHIP AND THE TEACHER LIBRARIAN, I want to throw a wrench into the whole process again. (see notes below) I feel we have time for more cognitive conflict, but I am not sure we have the energy. I have a feeling that we are barking up the wrong tree and what we should really be thinking about is decreasing teacher isolation rather than increasing student learning. Burdenuk states, that teacher isolation "may be the single most important factor preventing the integration of the school library into the curriculum of the school. Bringing down these walls may in the end create better student learning, morale and most important a culture of change.

So the big question is do I bring up this idea or go with the flow???

Collaboration and Body Language

In Fullan's book LEADING IN A CULTURE OF CHANGE, there is this feeling of leaders as needing an elevated personality who have emotional intelligence, an intuitive nature, self-awareness, intrapersonal skills, and social awareness, plus more. This is a tall order and for someone who has done a great deal of self refection and growth.

Last night at our last skype tele-conference with my group 23 I was hoping we were out of the chaos and moving into a clear path. Both Melanie and Rachel had been in touch with me and they were quite exciting about the direction we were headed. Helen, the scientist, remained silent. As soon as I turned on my computer, I realize we were far from chaos. Helen had revised the whole powerpoint from a more scientific point of view. I could hear frustration, especially from Rachel who was happy with the previous new direction. She felt we were close to closure and wanted to go back! Melanie also was questioning our new direction. I was fascinated! Here was our resister. Not in the true sense of the word, but it was almost as if Helen thinks on another level. Not a higher or lower level, just a different level. I was interested in trying to understand and listen to the resister and use some of the skills in Fullans book. I tried to mediate a conversation forward. On skype teleconference you can not see each other. I found it very difficult to gather information about the group without seeing body language. Garmston talks about body language being 80% of what people say and words are only 20%. How can you really collaborate when we can't see this most important aspect of peoples communication. I went into a cognitive coaching mode and asked clarify questions of Helen to help me understand. As we moved s-l-o-w-l-y forward it seemed that slide by slide we were moving in a direction back to the old way that the three of us were happy with. We didn't get far and it is a grueling process of inquiry and advocacy, but I are seeing and understanding the resistor and realizing that consensus takes time and energy. The process here is really what is fascinating and the end result, the powerpoint is secondary. Of course we all know this but it is something to embrace.