[Ailist] working with children in schools

Tue Jul 17 10:33:13 MDT 2007

My heartfelt thanks to the generous folks who so swiftly contributed their
great ideas and time to my query about 
working with the whole system in K-8 schools, particularly how to
successfully engage the youngest students in the 
process. Some of my intuitions have been affirmed, and even better,  I now
have a whole bunch of great new ideas to 
pitch to my core planning team. 

I will be sure to post a case study when this first AI summit has been
completed and to step up next time a list 
member needs similar help. Also, I will be responding privately to some of
the people who offered more detailed 
assistance. This is a great bunch of turned-on, practical people that I
feel honoured to be part of.

My very best wishes to all,
Virginia

Virginia McKendry, PhD
Brantford, ON, Canada

Original Message:
-----------------
From: MarySue Foster marysue at earthlink.net
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 07:49:57 -0500
To: vmckendry at rogers.com, ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Ailist] working with children in schools

Virginia -- what a delightful opportunity. Thanks for posting here to get
feedback.

We are using not-so-young people (high school) this fall again at our
Imagine-Nation Conference. We use high school and junior high students with
Imagine Dallas. And I concur with all the notes posted yesterday in terms of
engaging youngsters.

In general, our format has been to use triads of two adults and one young
person where possible. One adult serves as scribe. And we have discovered
that even if the words aren't captured, the experience is magical and much
can be re-created by having small groups report out to the larger group
using flip charts or poster boards or collages.

Bliss Brown has a pdf file at her website, www.imginechicago.org, that was
published on their tenth anniversary. It is full of ideas for all ages
including young children.

Good luck with your project. Let us know how it develops.

MarySue Foster
Imagine Dallas/Imagine-Nation
Imaginenationconference.org
Imagine a world where every voice is heard . . .

On 7/13/07 1:57 PM, "Virginia McKendry" <vmckendry at rogers.com> wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> The Appreciative Inquiry Discussion List is hosted by the David Eccles
School
> of Business at the University of Utah. Jack Brittain is the list
> administrator. For subscription information, go to:
> http://mailman.business.utah.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/ailist

_______________________________________________
The Appreciative Inquiry Discussion List is hosted by the David Eccles
School of Business at the University of Utah. 
Jack Brittain is the list administrator. For subscription information, go
to:
http://mailman.business.utah.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/ailist

--------------------------------------------------------------------
myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application
hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting