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What is Operation Cooperation? It is a program in St. Louis, where third grade children from three different faith-based schools get together several times per year. The purpose of Operation Cooperation is to give these children, and their parents and teachers, the opportunity to solve problems collaboratively with those of different faiths, with the hope that they will become more tolerant and respectful to others in their community and the world. Please go towww.EnTeam.orgfor a more detailed description of the program.
We've just completed our second Operation Cooperation program, which was held at St. Monica School on November 13th. It was an amazing fun-filled hour and a half. During that short time, the kids had the opportunity to bond with kids of other religions, while realizing how similar they all really are. They also had the unique opportunity to play games and, through those games, learn that everyone can win together and lose together.
{View a Facebook video of the Operation Cooperation Event at St. Monica School by clicking this link:Operation Cooperation Video }
The students were placed in the same groups as last time and many remembered their friends from the program the month before. It was great to see the recognition on the students' faces when they greeted each other. The students continued to connect with each other during the morning and it was as if they had known each other for longer than just the two short sessions.
Favorite quotes from surveys completed at the end of the program... "I was impressed by the openness between children". "The kids failed, worked together, succeeded and got the simple but powerful message: working together leads us to win together." Really loved the message of this program- more similarities than differences: working together to make peace in this world." A quote a parent heard one child say to another... "Did you see our playground. We should play together!"
One of the things I like best about the program that is not often mentioned, is the parents and teachers of different faiths, all coming together, showing kindness towards each other. The "goodbyes" at the end of the program were heartfelt and everyone wished each other "a Happy Thanksgiving". There were even some hugs between the teachers of different schools. It is amazing that through our children we are also forging relationships with adults of different faiths and realizing our similarities as well. The adult present at the program can see the unbiased interactions between the children and they can observe how children of different faiths enjoy the company of other children, without judgment. Many of us would never have had the chance to meet others from different faiths and what an incredible way to do it- through our children!
Last week EnTeam launched the first session of six for the Teen Mentoring and Employment Training at the Youth and Family Center on Cass Ave. in St.Louis City. This work is being led by EnTeam Executive Director, Ted Wohlfarth, who created an exciting 6 week curriculum that help students connect the mentoring skills they will learn to the skills they need to join the work force.
The agenda last week took the students through the process of getting to know one another by playing a game called Unique and Similar. In this game everyone in the room finds ways that they are unique from one another and similar to one another. This allowed the group to get to know each other, then they ready to list their life goals, career goals and education goals on note cards. The group then discussed the relationship between goals and positive interdependence. Working with the kids to clearly outline and discuss their goals was amazing! Some knew just what to write, while others labored over where they wanted their lives to go.
After a little discussion about goals, the group was led in the EnTeam Game: Keeping on Track. In this game, students are asked to move a ping pong ball from one end of the room to another, placing the ball in a bag to score a point. To do this students are given ping pong balls, special tracks that they hold in their hands to move the balls and a list of rules. They are told to do anything they want as long as they don’t break the rules.
That is the hard part, not breaking the rules. This means they have to think outside the box, discuss ideas and strategies, work together and think independently all while following the rules. When the game started the students were faced with making a plan, it was hard for them, and they were looking to the adults in the room for direction. But, the adults were reminded to let the students figure it out on their own. And they did, the game was played several times, scoring group best and each time the score increased!
After the game the group sat in a circle and talked about what they learned and what it had to do with getting a job. One girl shared that playing the game is like looking for a job “You have to talk to your community and ask for help”. Their homework assignment was to write down situations where they may need to share an idea or feedback with someone who does not understand what is important to them. The homework feeds into this week’s agenda which is set to focus on Listening and Constructive Feedback.
We are really excited to have the opportunity to work with the students at The Youth and Family Center and look forward to sharing news of our progress here on our blog. We have about 15 kids in our program from schools all over St.Louis and we have had fun working with all of them and look forward to the next 5 sessions.
EnTeam is looking for a new blood to enrich its current crop of board members. Most particularly, we are seeking individuals who have experience in marketing, computer technology and accounting. Our Board is very hands on, and offers an opportunity to work with a group which is focused on the learning needs of under-served kids. Our meetings are held monthly. We encourage members to be fully engaged in our mission through attendance at scholastic events and in committee work. Please call Executive Director Ted Wohlfarth at 314-814-2000, or Hazel Forster, Board Development Coordinator, 314-533-1239 to let us know if you would be interested in learning more.
Kids love to correct adults. A group of middle school students gleefully told me I was wrong when I said the number pi = 3.1416. And I was impressed that they could recite the value of pi to 7 decimal places.
The value of pi came up because we were comparing laws of math to other abstract concepts and laws. The students had made comparison charts and were discussing similarities and differences.
Out of the blue, one of the students asked how anybody came up with the value of pi in the first place. We happened to be sitting at a round table. I asked them how they could find pi using this table and a measuring tape. They did not know.
I asked questions about how to reason through the problem. Even though we had tape measures and they knew the value of pi, they did not know how to begin. I gave them broad hints about how to explore the question. Gradually it came apparent that they had memorized facts about pi and circles but they had not grasped how to use the facts.
The experience reminded me that kids need to engage with ideas and play with them if they are going to master them. This raises the question of educational strategies and teaching methods.
What would happen if school was structured as a series of projects and teams of students worked on the projects collaboratively? Would students be able to use the facts they memorize to find solutions and answer questions?
Suppose students were given a list of questions and told that as soon as they knew the answers to the questions they could move into the next grade level in that subject. How might students respond?
How would the school cope with students who were advancing rapidly in some areas and lagging in other areas?
I hope that you will explore these questions with several people who are thinking about ways to restructure classroom education.
Hopefully you are all getting ready for the holiday season and makeing a list of things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Here at EnTeam, we are working hard to help teachers measure cooperation in their classrooms. A few months ago we came across the RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms and today we are thankful to be able to share it with all of you.
"This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award."
Have you heard abou The Return in Peace Program yet? EnTeam Organization has partnered with Gateway To Peace Museum and Confluence Academy to create and when funding is made available, impliment this program. We woudl love to hear your feeback about the program, read below to find out more:
The Return in Peace Program
As a component of the Pathways Progression Program, EnTeam Organization (EO) and Gateway to Peace Museum (GPM), in cooperation with Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club, propose to pilot their Return in Peace Training Program for Confluence Academy.
Funding for the work could begin in January of 2012 if we win the grant submitted to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. We expect an answer from the Board of Aldermen in December.
We are working with Confluence Academy to apply for other grants.
WHY Return in Peace?
The goal for Return in Peace is to give Confluence Preparatory Academy (CPA) students who have been suspended the support that they need to return to school and succeed in school. Return in Peace will support CPA's goal of reducing long-term suspensions from 22.7% of students to 5% of students by 2013-14.
WHO will be involved in Return in Peace?
At least 110 at-risk students will take part in the Return in Peace curriculum and mentoring activities as a part of the Confluence Academy Pathways Progression Plan.
Another 150 CPA students will be engaged in cooperative learning activities in their classrooms.
Return in Peace will enlist its participants in mentoring another 450 K-8 students through Peace Museum activities.
At least one academic department can be involved in EnTeam professional development related to cooperative learning strategies and project-based learning.
How will Return in Peace operate?
Students at CPA who participate in the Pathways Progression Plan develop their goals and identify requirements for successfully matriculating at the school. While on suspension of any length students at CPA revisit their Pathways Progression plan and specify goals and requirements for returning to school. The completion of a designated number of hours in the Return in Peace Program (to be determined by the school administration) may now become a mandatory piece of that plan for most suspended students.
Program Components:
Academic and Peace Mentor Training - Students enrolled in Return in Peace will use a cooperative learning approach to participate for at least two hours twice a week in an innovative cycling 4-week character education curriculum based around 4 themes of peacemaking and violence prevention - Personal Peace (focusing on self-worth and healthy emotional expression), Interpersonal Peace (focusing on communication and cooperation), Peace for the Community (focusing on cultural appreciation, respect for diversity and tolerance) and Environmental Peace (focusing on environmental stewardship and awareness). Each session, teens will participate in one activity which demonstrates the cooperative learning approach, and will then be trained to apply that approach to analyze the four peace-related themes as they appear in over 40 interactive learning centers for younger children. The cooperative learning analysis is intended to greatly increase students' depth of knowledge related to each thematic area, while encouraging them to explore the vocabulary and questions that might best engage younger children in each activity.
The curriculum will also prepare teens to facilitate cooperative learning games and strategies for their peers in an academic classroom context. Training sessions will also allow teens to role-play cooperative learning activities, teaching them how best to approach such activities as either mentors for young children or for peers. The curriculum will repeat every four weeks, allowing students to enter the program at any time throughout the semester, as well as allowing struggling students, or students on longer suspensions, to repeat the curriculum as needed.
Transportation: High school students could be provided with a bus pass during their participation in the Return in Peace program.
Academic Support for Suspended Students - Concurrent with their participation in the Return in Peace curriculum, students will also be required to complete a designated number of hours (a minimum of two hours per day twice a week) keeping up with their school work through the Anywhere Learning System (ALS) on-line courses. CPA will provide additional staff and tutors to supervise both the Return in Peace training and the computer lab work.
Peace Mentoring - Because teaching reinforces learning, teens that excel in the program will use the skills they have learned to act as "Peace Mentors," or facilitators, for those same thematic peace-making learning centers for children in a traveling museum format, bringing creative and interactive non-violence education to at least 450 elementary and middle school students in one year. High school students will be offered a stipend of $32 per event for acting as Peace Mentors with younger students outside of school hours (with a minimum commitment of three events) and will be allowed to ride their school's regular bus to attend any off-site mentoring activities after school.
Academic Mentoring - All students that have completed the Return in Peace training program will be prepared to act as Academic Mentor for their peers or for younger high school students, and will have the opportunity to practice and demonstrate the peer mentoring skills they have learned through on-going Academic mentoring activities. 11th and 12th graders that have permission from their teachers to leave class for designated periods will go into 9th and 10th grade classes to lead cooperative learning sessions. 9th and 10th graders will stay in their own classrooms to provide additional support and leadership during cooperative learning activities.
Cooperative Learning Activities/EnTeam Professional Development - These activities will consist of cooperative learning peer mentor sessions focused on the academic goals laid out by the teacher in each classroom. Trained EnTeam facilitators will guide six of these sessions for teachers in at least one academic department, providing those teachers with support in applying the process of measuring cooperation with students, and helping them to engage the trained mentors to manage their classrooms during cooperative learning activities. EnTeam can also provide additional professional development related to project-based learning and differentiated instruction in teacher-only settings.
Where will Return in Peace operate?
For a fee to be determined, Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club will allow Return in Peace to operate its training program in a classroom and a computer lab at their Sportsmen's Park location. Alternatively, the training pieces could operate at:
CPA itself (opportunity cost for the space) or
Computer Village ($75/hour includes computer trainer)
Peace Mentor activities will take place at Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club Sportsmen's Park location during their after-school programming, and may also take place at Confluence K-8 school during the May/June
Academic Mentor activities, and Cooperative Learning/EnTeam Professional Development will take place at CPA during class time.
COST of Return in Peace?
The cost for Return in Peace is depends on the number of components that are included in the program.
The budget for Return in Peace proposal submitted to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen was $99,
EnTeam Organization has been working hard this fall with four different schools that are participating in our program, "Operation Cooperation". The schools working with us this year are: Al-Salam Day School, St. Monica School, Solomon Schechter Day School and Principia School. 3rd Grade students, parents and teachers from the schools will come together 4 times this year to learn to work together using EnTeam games like Unique and Similar, Keeping on Track and Talking Dominoes. These games are designed to measure cooperation and the sessions will show children from different backgrounds how to come together and build a relationship and work together.
Last year we received some really great Thank You notes from the students at Solomon Schecter Day School, take a look at our FaceBook page to see them. This is such a fun and rewarding program, we look forward to sharing more about its progression as the year goes by!
For more information about EnTeam Organization and Operation Cooperation visit the links below and add us on FaceBook:
Imagine games that create a culture of respect by challenging young people to keep score of competition against problems - not against people. Envision scoreboards that undermine the motivation to bully by changing the ways people win. This picture is coming into focus in St. Louis classrooms where gang members have become partners by playing games keep score of collaborative performance.
Kids long for attention. They want recognition and status. Kids see that winners get attention, recognition and status. Adults teach many games in which the winners are those who stronger, faster, or tougher than the losers.
Most of the games that adults teach children are based on the premise that to have a winner there must be a loser. Games that keep score on a win-lose basis using a traditional scoreboard teach kids that they cannot be a winner unless they have evidence someone else is a loser. When kids believe that they can be winners by making others into losers, bullying makes sense.
The lessons of the win-lose scoreboard need to be balanced by using lessons from win-win scoreboards. When kids (and adults) experience games that keep score of the basis of how well one side does at working with the other side, the result is an expanded view of winning. They see that to be a winner in a win-win contest, they have to work with the other side. Kids discover that they can win together by cooperating with people on the other team. They also find out that they can lose if they cannot work together with others.
There is a system of games - EnTeam games - that challenge players to work together to defeat problems rather than people. Players learn that beating an impersonal opponent such as time, distance, ignorance, fear, or the unknown is challenging and rewarding. They learn to win by being good at working with people who are different. And they discover that it is fun to take the risk losing together - and satisfying to defeat a problem and win together.
EnTeam games are not against competition. These games expand the concept of winning to include competition against problems. Kids learn that they win or lose in these games depending on how well they work with the kids on the other side. They win together if they can improve their collaborative performance - and they lose together if they cannot improve their collaborative performance.
Since 1995 EnTeam Organization has been developing, testing, and refining games that keep score of collaborative performance. The results show that when kids play EnTeam games they are more cooperative and fight less than they did before they played EnTeam games. Experience shows that when adults teach EnTeam games there is less bullying.
Schools are businesses and their product determines the future of business not only in America, but all around the world. Their product is more than reading, writing and math, more than skills in communication, competition and cooperation, and it is more than the doors of opportunity that mastery of those skills can open. The product of our nation’s schools is our children, an entity greater than the sum of its parts. And it is our children who will go on to develop the society of the future through innovations and solutions we can’t even imagine of today.
But one of America’s biggest businesses is failing to prepare its students for a real world those students already face on a daily basis. In the U.S., one student drops out of school every 12 seconds. That’s over 1,164,197 students just in this year alone (www.bigpicture.org). That number not only indicates the amount of students who didn’t see the relevance of education in their lives, but also the amount of creative capital this country has lost. This is why EnTeam is proposing we rethink the way we educate our students. If kids feel they can find more value in the real world instead of at school, then why not bring school to the world of work? EnTeam believes the reason why schools are failing is because the educational system is only half-developed. Schools are missing out on the creative and educational capital that businesses can offer by limiting the scope of their curriculum to the classroom.
Professionals who work for companies, government organizations and non-profit institutions use the skills they learned at school to develop services and products that solve problems directly impacting communities and individuals. They understand the importance of education, because they directly experience how their education connects to the meaningful and empowering work they do everyday. Students don’t have that instant gratification, but professionals can aid in the education of students by illustrating that connection. Organizations like Big Picture Learning, Schools that Work and Expeditionary Learning have proved that it benefits students and businesses when students are able to make a connection between the academic material they are learning in school to the work that professionals do outside of school.
Professionals can become mentors to students, provide volunteer opportunities for students within their organizations, and work with teachers to develop a professional component to their curriculum.
By building these kinds of relationships when a student asks why they are learning something, the answer moves form "because I said you have to" to "because when you know how to do this you can change the world."
Posted in Blog on February 03, 2011 by Ted Wohlfarth
What is the purpose of using peer mentoring in high schools?
Imagine that you are a high school freshman. You are worried about making friends, afraid you won’t be accepted by your peers and upperclassmen, overwhelmed by a new school building with new teachers, and terrified by the higher level of academic work you are asked to do. But, one day your school starts a mentoring program and builds it into your daily schedule. You and another freshman are paired up with a mentor, a senior who obviously knows how to make it through freshman year. He is confident, comfortable in school, has goals of going to college after he graduates and, best of all, he wants to be your friend.
Everyday the three of you study together using learning exercises that help you with your schoolwork. The learning exercises are called Enteam games and they develop your critical thinking skills as well as your social skills, including cooperation and communication. As you play a game that improves your ability to read, so an assignment that used to take you three hours to read is cut down to an hour, you also learn how to effectively communicate with your mentor to achieve your short-term and long-term academic goals. You play math games that require you to cooperate with your mentor in order to win and, because of the strong support of your mentor, word problems become a fun challenge instead of a good way to ruin your self-confidence. You look forward to going to school, because you know your mentor will be there for you and you don’t want to let him down. You also feel accepted, because you know a senior has your back.
Gradually, you find that achieving the high academic standards of your teachers and building positive relationships with your peers isn’t a mystery anymore, because you have a model to follow. And you know that you have to do as well as you possibly can in school, because in another two years you will become a role model for two incoming freshman, too.
By developing learning exercises that strengthen academic performance, improve necessary social skills, and build meaningful relationships between seniors and freshman, Enteam is taking on the challenge of lowering the student drop out rate of high schools in St. Louis and around the country. Enteam understands the importance of education and works tirelessly to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to realize their true potential.
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