May 9, 2009

Post date: May 9, 2009 9:08:24 AM

May 9 (Noon) - Notes from the 5th Journey in the Classroom

Taking a little break from moving Inventory around with Nathan at Mango Tree.

Tomorrow I will do a Journey with Herman's wife, who is also a school teacher, and Tuesday will be my last day with the kids at Kibiri. I've been wanting to share what happened last Tuesday. Don, one of founders of Action for Peace and Conflict Transformation(APCT), came with me last week. For the first time since I've known him he arrived early to meet me and ride out to Kibiri. I've waiting as much as 2 hours for Don some days. We were supposd to meet at 8:30. Dinah told him 8:00 since she knows how late he can be. Well, he arrived at 7:30, and ended up waiting an hour for me to show - LOL - poor Don.

Anyway, Don and I arrived at the school early and the children also arrived early, as usual. We did our morning introductions and brain gyms and then I introduced Don. In the past APCT has only worked in Secondary Schools, but they have developed a curriculim for Primary Schools that they are getting ready to deliver. They have also developed teacher workshops. This was the first time I had the opportunity to watch Don work with children. He is really talented. The children and Herman were very interested in getting involved and having APCT come work with their school. Then we did a Kids Journey which Don, and another teacher that Herman invited, got to experience for the first time. Here's a couple of the drawings depicting how these children felt before their Journey and after.

After the Journey we played a multicultural game where the children seperated into two groups and got to experience what it feels like to try to get to know people that are very different from themselves, and have different cultural habbits and ways of communicating. It was fun and interesting and they got to practice that new word I taught them nearly six weeks ago -- empathy. Then we did a Buddhist inspired peace dance about being the jewel in the lotus flower and clearly seeing the perfection and beauty in everyone we meet.

It was nice having Don there and I noticed the teacher that Herman brought to visit was having a lot of side conversations with Don as the day passed. Later Don told me that he was really interested it what we were doing and was beginning to realize new possibilities for ways of teaching. He had only come because Herman had encouraged him to, and he had thought it was just going to be a joke. Now he was very excited to learn more.

Don and I had lunch afterwards and I learned more about the programs they are developing for teachers. APCT is operating in their third year, while CGPP is operating in it's second - and it seems like we always have great ideas and learnings to share when we get together. I also realized after talking with Don that he fills a role at APCT similar to role Tajali fills at CGPP - the one with many years of experience working with children and teacers, and the one that is really driving the creativity and curriculim. Dinah, on the other hand, seems more of the 'Kevin' of APCT and provides more focus towards organizational structure and all that yuckity yuck. It's just interesting.