Weekly Tribes

Another school year is coming to a close and ‘Weekly Tribes’ is going to take a summer vacation. Here are some suggestions to celebrate the end of a great school year with your students and staff… Draw names and make a certificate for that fellow student or staff member.  Get some wallpaper samples to make for some interesting design choices.  Certificates can be heartfelt, awards, notable achievements, and just for fun. Have your students compose an “I used to be (not know…) and Now I am (know)” poem and then combine the statements for an introduction to your next year class. Take some time in community circle to celebrate…with pictures, drawings, little fun writing assignments about the beginning of the year to the end. Reflect-reflect-reflect. If you are really ambitious, take the time to write a thank-you card to every one of your students. Have a party and have each student bring some thing to eat that they can prove to be educational – example – phyllo dough in the shape of an open book with chocolate syrup as the writing on the pages?! Have each student pick a teacher from the past and write that teach a thank-you note.  (You will make their day!) Have an ‘Energizer Fest’ with students doing to facilitation. Make a ‘Dream Quilt’ about experiences of things learned this year and you have a lovely wall decorated to start next year. See you in August!

Here comes another offering from Catch the Fire. Musician and facilitator Rachel Bagby has created an elegant group reflection tool – a new poetic form called dekaaz.  Consisting of three lines with just ten syllables, it’s a simple, fun, and powerful form for distilling and sharing insight.  Dekaaz can consolidate a vast amount of experience into a tiny poem, and the brevity offers a democratic way for many voices to be heard in a relatively short amount of time.  A dekaaz is constructed like this: two syllabes in the first line three syllables in the second line five syllables in the third line Flowers Are Earth’s way Of laughing out loud – Jeff Vander Clute, executive director, New Stories Rachel says a ten-syllable poem doesn’t officially become a dekaaz until you speak it out loud to another living being.  Thus, the dekaaz process is innately interactive. This entry is from page 115-116 in Catch the Fire.

Do you have this book yet? Catch the Fire Details for ‘The AM/FM Conversation’ are on page 87-88 and 91-92. Here’s the gist: Imagine we each have a radio inside – a metaphor for our inner-speak AM = ‘against me’ conversations, FM = ‘For me’ or Forward Moving conversations. Discuss examples of both kinds of ‘talk’. Have participants draw a vertical line on paper and write down examples of their own AM and FM conversations.  Share in small groups. Now have each person, in small group, practice talking in the ‘FM’.  “If you really knew me you would know…(all ‘FM’ channel).  Reflect on how that felt – both as a speaker and as a listener. Finally, invite everyone in full circle to share one FM statement he/she would like to say to him/herself more often. This could be a very Influential strategy. What about using in curriculum?!  Apply the AM/FM channels to literary or historical characters, reasons for knowing algebra/geometry, study skills, test-taking, or topics like ‘social media’.

Here’s a fun way to activate some visual/spatial intelligence. Have students draw their names with pictures. Example:  “Gary” could draw a bunch of grapes for G, an apple for A, a ring for R, and a blotch of yellow for Y. Once everyone has completed drawings, post or share in groups to guess the names.  Or, save for name tags or desk top names. If you really want to pose a challenge, have students draw names in literature or study…or even concepts.

Heads Up! The Compassion Games happen twice a year and You just might want to learn about and get ready for the April games.  Here is an intro and the website for more information. Very Tribes-like! [pb_vidembed title="" caption="" url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtHvJO0aXTg" type="yt" w="480" h="385"] Earth Week