Students learning and leading #DLVT19

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I am so grateful to have the opportunity to speak at different conferences and that is awesome, but to me, the opportunity to learn with others and attend sessions is the highlight. And if you know me, when there are students doing awesome things, I am all about that. I had the privilege of hearing students share about their projects at the Dynamic Landscapes conference in Burlington, Vermont.

Projects for Hope: Burke Town School

I was so impressed to see an entire class of students share about their projects based on a Sustainable Development Goals. We often talk about failure and the importance of building resilience and in these projects, each project, students talked about their challenges and what they learned from their failures. One group admitted that they were in a slump because none of their original ideas were going to work. Another group shared that time management was an issue. It was so cute to hear them talk about a challenge which was, “Winter came!” so they needed a Winter plan.

When they shared the skills they learned, it included writing grants, writing emails, connecting with businesses, as well as research. They also had to be flexible in their thinking, work on time management skills. In every project kids reach out to community partners and apply to receive grants for their projects. They also admitted they needed to learn how to be self-directed in their learning.

There was also a teaching element to all of the projects. One group taught 4th and 5th grades about trees, while another group taught younger students restorative justice practices to help kids talk about tough issues. Another group taught kids how to grow a garden, while another group showed kids how to make bread and pretzels.

Mental Health: Murals, restorative justice

Bike Trails: Plant trees, create a bike trail.

Bees and Garden: Created a bee hive and garden

HOPE (Helping Other People Every day) created a Soup program, food drive

In terms of sustainability, each of the groups created a “sustainability plan” so that their project lives on. This is such an important aspect of the process. The younger students create, “argumentative essays” on what they would like to do the following year.

Logistically, kids who need to go out into the community need adult supervision. The teacher moderators shared that they relied on community partners, fellow teachers, and parent volunteers.

Advice from kids: Make your goal small, create a calendar, have group agreements.

Advice from teachers: Have a common, flexible calendar, have conference logs, plot the curriculum expectations as you go.

Project link.

 

Using the Sustainable Development goals for STEAM: Ottauquechee School in Quechee, VT

There was literally SO MUCH awesome shared by Rebecca Whitney, Cathy Newton, and Katy Farber!

Presentation link

Some of the things I noted included a Pasta Challenge activity, whereby groups of students were tasked to create a pasta hotel with an inequity of resources (they didn’t know they had limited resources until they presented their hotels to one another).

In one activity, students all helped to create a world in Minecraft that would in some way address the SDGs. Students created the expectations for using Minecraft which was an excelling digital citizenship in context opportunity.

Another idea shared was a Library Audit! I loved this idea as a Teacher-Librarian. Students had to pick a specific topic and genre (e.g., Gender and race in biographies, Religion in graphic novels, Race in comic books) and identify gaps in the library collection and share their research in the form of an infographic. When it became clear that many voices were missing, they helped the teacher-librarian purchase books to address the gap.

All of these initiatives came about because of a progressive administrator who created “STEAM” time where the teacher-librarian met with all students in a particular grade to work in grade-level teams.

 

S.O.A.R.

A group of confident and articulate students led by their club moderator, Christie Nold  shared about their club, S.O.A.R. (Students Organizing Against Racism). The interactive workshop explored ways the kids have been addressing racism within their school. Students from Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School in South Burlington shared experiences from their journey and had us engage in activities designed to help us think about the language we use, the silence we sometimes express, and the ways in which this can impact what a student hears and believes about themselves.

They used many resources from Tolerance.org and shared the powerful TEd Talk, The Danger of Silence by Clint Smith who advocates that we:  Read Critically, Write Consciously, Speak Clearly, & Tell your Truth

He reminds us, “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Clint Smith

They also talked about micro-agressions (and had us match them) which was a good reminder that when we allow some language to be said in our classrooms, it has an impact. Creating a culture of empathy and kindness begins with using inclusive language.

I was very impressed by these students who were leading the way towards promoting a culture of kindness and respect in their school.

Carefully considering Drones

I am so sad I missed this, but was so happy to chat with the kids on the campus about why they think drones belong in school!


Here is the presentation link shared by their teacher, Chris Johnstone.

Thank you to Lucie deLaBruere, Bonnie Birdsall and Craig for being such wonderful hosts and for inviting me to be a part of your conference and to all the new educators I met from whom I learned!

 

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