[Ailist] re: working with children in schools

[Alice Leibowitz]

Virginia:

It looks like you are asking for a Future Search. Future Search is a
two-to-three day confreence-style meeting (summit) with all stakeholders of
an organization in the same room, where they look at the past, present, and
future of the organization, envision ideal futures, and plan action steps.
It's structured yet organiic and gets everyone talking to everyone over the
course of the time together.

There have been dozens of Future Searches in school systems around the
country, many of which have included children with great success. See
http://www.futuresearch.net/method/applications/sectors.cfm?sid=4 for
details. If you're interested, I can connect you with many consultants who
can tell you their stories.

-Alice

-- 
Alice Leibowitz
Partner
Insight Unlimited LLC
Non-profit, Community, and Grassroots Consulting
Hartford, CT
alice at insightunlimited.org
www.insightunlimited.org
(860) 956-9299

~Contact us for a free 1-2 hour consultation~


Message: 10
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:38:10 -0700
From: "Julie Alive with Energy" <motivate at frontiernet.net>
Subject: RE: [Ailist] working with children in schools
To: "'Virginia McKendry'" <vmckendry at rogers.com>,       "'AI List'"
       <ailist at lists.business.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <002601c7c585$5bf343e0$020010ac at D63M3Y11>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="windows-1250"


www.ucwp.org


-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Virginia
McKendry
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 11:58 AM
To: AI List
Subject: [Ailist] working with children in schools

Dear List,

I have been contracted to lead a school-wide summit with a K-8 school
in Southern Ontario, this coming fall semester. The principal and
superintendent are very excited about using AI as are many of the
parents. The principal is committed to taking one or even two days to
involve everyone in the school in this exciting undertaking. I'm not
sure what specifically we will be inquiring into, but likely
something like "incredible readers" or "a caring, friendly place to
learn" or "the best school in the whole county", etc.

We are just in the planning stages, and by the end of this month I
would like to be able to propose a couple of ways of doing a summit
in such a way that all parts of the system contribute to the inquiry.
This means engaging all of the students, including the youngest, many
of whom, of course, do not yet read or write. Teachers, support
staff, parents, some social entrepreneurs, and the school
superintendent will also be involved.

Have any of the list members worked successfully with children this
young, and with children of varying ages? How did you do it? Did you
have the little kids interviewing big people? What if they are too
shy, etc.? And what kinds of questions work best for these very young
participants?Would it work better to have classes doing interviews
before the summit? Or is it more fruitful to have students from one
grade interviewing kids from another grade? If the child is not yet
literate, does working with pictures work best, or does it help to
have a scribe to support the interview?

Also, there are some concerns about how we are going to manage a
successful AI summit with so many children participating. There is a
worry that having all of the students in the gym together will result
in nothing but mayhem, given that their teachers will not be in pure
supervisory roles, but taking part in the AI process themselves. Kids
in gyms tend to go a bit bonkers, at least this is the experience of
some teachers I've talked to about what we are planning to do.

Again, has anyone on the list dealt with this issue? Any creative
ways of "herding cats" so that everyone gets to participate without
getting distracted by the presence of their buddies, and proximity to
other kids from other grades?

I'll leave this to simmer with the group mind. Thank you very much in
advance for any and all of your wisdom!

Best wishes,
Virginia


Virginia McKendry, PhD
Brantford, Ontario, Canada