Loving the Least of These

A high school student asked, "Mr. Dunlap, what J-Term class are you teaching this year?"

Me: "Orphan care."
Him: "Oh..."

I got a chuckle out of that conversation.  I explained to the student that I have two main passions, and this year I wanted to focus on the other passion. As a technology teacher, the expectation would be that my J-Term class would focus on technology in some way. Most of my students know that I'm an adoptive dad, and it just makes perfect sense that I care deeply about caring for the fatherless.

We hold J-Term for our middle and high school students during the first week back from Christmas Break.  Classes are roughly 2 1/2 hours long each and have nothing to do with the regular curriculum.

One of my colleagues, Jessica Finney, and I teamed up to teach the class.  I was a bit disappointed that our class had only four students, but I can honestly say that they were the right four students.  By selecting our class, they had to give up the chance to decorate cakes, survive in the wilderness, crochet, take care of cats in a shelter, and do a host of other fun classes.  Obviously, they had a reason to want to learn about serving the fatherless before they walked into class on Monday. 

Show Hope has a great student club, called The Movement, which provides materials necessary to launch high schoolers into action.  The goal was to use this curriculum heavily to help us through the week.  However, something strange happened when we got students in front of us.... They connected better with personal stories.  They soaked in the stories we told and kept asking more and more questions.  They wanted to watch more videos about adoption and foster care.  In short, they couldn't get enough stories.  

To quote Chris Wheeler from Show Hope, the intent is to move students "from unaware to aware to action."

The "unaware to aware" part was easy. We just put on a parade of guest speakers to talk about how adoption has affected their lives.  I'll list the guest speakers below, but we hit a broad range of topics just by talking about personal experiences.  Domestic and international adoption and foster care were certainly part of our discussions.  However, we talked about why there is an orphan crisis to begin with -- unwanted pregnancies, abusive parents, and poverty to name a few.  We talked quite a bit about the costs of adoption and ways to fund adoptions.  We showed videos and looked at blogs and Instagram posts.  We invited speakers in via Skype.  We also talked about Compassion International which is an organization that helps to end poverty in third world counties.  By sponsoring a child, you provide them with food and education to help them make a difference in their country.  If you look hard enough, there are examples all around of the orphan crisis and how someone can stand up for orphans.  And that doesn't always mean adoption.  There are tons of ways to help someone in need.

To be honest, I am stunned how much we covered in a short time.  On Wednesday, we put three columns on the board (The Problem, The Solution, How a Teen Can Help) and asked them to fill the columns with their ideas.  In my opinion this was a watershed moment for the class.  We took all our thoughts swirling in our heads and got them written down in front of our faces.

In the second half of the week, we got more personal by talking to the students' peers.  We had a total of four visitors, three girls who have been adopted and a fourth whose two sisters were adopted out of foster care.  All four stories were incredibly different, but it helped our students see how adoption can even influence people they know well.

The second part of the plan was to move from "aware to action."  That was a bit tougher.  First, it's not right to assume a student wants to be part of the solution.  Second, the students need to take ownership of the action. I could certainly push them to do some things but for it to be meaningful the ideas really had to be their own.

It was so encouraging to hear them talk about wanting to be adoptive parents or siblings.  At least two of them are contemplating taking missions trips to China.  We've talked about starting a club next year and about how a college student can be an advocate for orphans.  I wouldn't be surprised if this summer finds a volleyball camp at our school for foster kids and it won't be long before awareness posters are up in the hallways at school.

Sadly we ran out of time before we put together a solid action plan for the future, but I'm just excited to see teens with a desire to help those in need.

Now, to my thank you section...

• Jessica Finney -- teacher at MVCA and future foster/adoptive mom. When I say "we," many times I mean "she." Jessica has broad knowledge of anything dealing with foster care, adoption, and helping those in poverty.  
• Shawn Baker -- adoptive dad and Founder of Zoe's House. 
  
• Randy Bohlender -- adoptive dad and Executive Director of Zoe's House.
• Lynn Woods -- True Voices 
  
• Kay Pardue -- Show Hope
• Chris Wheeler -- adoptive dad and Director of Student Initiatives at  Show Hope
  
• Robert Vilardo -- adoptive dad and Athletic Director at MVCA 
  
• Amy Kinnell -- adoptive mom and case worker with Adoption Assistance 
  
• Those four girls who shared with our class.  They will remain nameless but we appreciate making their personal stories public.
• The four students in class who moved from unaware to action.  Wow! Can't wait to see what happens next! 
  

Final Innovation Projects - January 2015

After a solid week of working two and a half hours a day (plus self-assigned homework) today was the big day. Presentation Day!

Enjoy their projects below...
Remote Control Car by Lucas
Greek/Roman Mythology by Kate
Destiny Classes Video by Cooper, Jacob, and Russell
RAGE by Nathan
Motored Car Video by Will

Each student was given 3-5 minutes to talk about and show off their project.  (The exception would be the group of three. They were given permission to go for 10 minutes.) Overall, I was impressed by what they could accomplish in a short amount of time.

Of course, I have reflections on the whole process.

• I really wanted to focus on the inquiry model discussed in A More Beautiful Question. When I read about The 5 Whys and the Why-What If-How progression I knew I had a winning way to get students thinking on a different level.  I'm still convinced of that. However, I think the way I went about it didn't spark a lot of higher level thinking or new innovations. I think I just created a need hoop for them to jump through on the way to the project.  I need to reconsider how to make that work in the future. 
• I used OneNote Class Notebook to run this class. It was a gem. Everything was in one place. All I had to do was open the notebook, and everything I wanted and needed was there.  I didn't have to hunt for emails or remember where the notes were.  Everything was in one notebook. I will definitely use it again.
• However, I will say that the notebook was easy to manage because I only had 7 students. I think it could feel more cumbersome if I had 20 or more students. 
• I need to be more proactive checking on student work.  For instance, take the Destiny video made by the three guys.  I originally declined the project because Destiny is a first person shooter game. They assured me it would be just characters and no weapons, so I approved it.  Apparently, we didn't communicate properly.  Their presentation included grenades and other weaponry.  If I was spending more time looking over shoulders I would have seen that before the presentation.  

Overall, it was a great week. There was a lot of learning that happened, and I loved their enthusiasm.  Bring on the next project! 

Day 4 - Last Full Work Day

They came in today with an air of enthusiasm.

• "I brought my motor in!"
• "I'm frustrated because I don't think my site will be done in time."
• "Do I send my video to you?"
• "What kind of motor are you using?"
• "What is the level of noise I'm allowed to make? I have to try this out, and it might be loud."

I love this kind of talk!  For three days they worked, researched, typed, drew, and kept their focus. You can tell that the projects are coming to a climax.  These students are talking about it, sharing it, and I couldn't be happier. 

Innovation Update - Day 3 of J-Term

That was such a non-creative post title.  Sorry about that.

Today is Day 3 of our Innovation Projects. (You can read the nitty gritty of this project here.) I will say that this project started with a few twists and turns from our previous projects.

I'm used to seeing students work on their projects for one class period on Friday.  This has been more intense, with two and a half hours every day!  What that means is as I type this (about an hour into Wednesday) we have a month and a half worth of work smashed into 2+ days.

Frankly, Monday and Tuesday were boring for me. The students were focused on their work with very little interaction. The only real conversation was from the group of three boys who are working on a project together. Even they were pretty quiet.  However, the projects are starting to take shape and students are starting to share.

Take the boys in the picture below. (It's not the best picture, but I tried to be stealthy.) The two boys on our right -- Will and Lucas -- are working on similar projects, remote control cars/robots.  They have been watching videos of other similar projects and comparing notes on their creations. The boy on our left is Nathan. He is creating his own video game on YoYo Games. As Will and Lucas compared their notes, Nathan shoved his laptop in front of Will. Next thing you know, Will is playing Nathan's game.  Pure Genius!

This is J-Term. We have students all over this school and our community doing really fun stuff.  We have classes playing Ultimate Frisbee and basketball, cooking, doing service projects, volunteering at a cat shelter -- fun and not mentally taxing activities.  Then, we have us.  Slaving in front of computers, learning quietly, and creating. I almost feel guilty, but I remember these kids signed up for it... and it is the class of their choice.  However, take this group of guys hanging out in the back of the room. They are working on creating a gaming video together.  They. Assigned. Themselves. Homework.

This young lady has been in constant work mode all week, creating her own web site about Greek mythology.  So, what did she do? Went out and got honest to goodness books (made out of paper, no less) to learn the mythology needed for her site.

I am excited about the learning going on in this room this week.

I'm also experimenting with OneNote Classroom Notebook, and I'm pleased with the results so far. I gave each student a section called "Workspace" which is exactly what it sounds like. I figured it would go largely untouched, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Nathan actually stash his ponderings there. I got to see the characters he created on Paint and some of the plans he had for for his plot.  For some unknown reason he deleted his work after one day, but -- well -- it is his work. 

In retrospect I wish I had included a rubric section for each student in their notebook.  I could have made an Excel spreadsheet that kept them updated on their scores each day. I'll definitely include that in the future.

Overall, I'm pleased with the direction this round of projects is heading and can't wait to see the final products on Friday.

J-Term, Genius Hour, and OneNote

Welcome back to school!  My school traditionally kicks off the new semester with a week of J-Term for our middle and high school students, and I've been given the chance to teach one of these classes. Since my middle school tech class was cancelled this year, this is a great opportunity to dive back into my beloved Innovation Projects.  

I'm sitting in a room with seven middle schoolers as they ponder their projects for the week.  More on their projects in a bit. While I'm excited to see what they can create this week, I'm also excited to use a new toy -- OneNote Class Notebooks. I blogged about this tool before Christmas, and we were able to get it set up in time for this J-Term class. Here is how things are set up...

• There is content library which all students can see but not edit. Here is where I created my "handouts" full of instructions and examples.  The whole course is laid out there for them -- proposals, daily updates, presentation, and rubric.
• Each student has his/her own section that only the two of us can view and/or edit. There are tabs within those sections for proposal, homework, and work space. 

This project will be a bit different than the ones I've hosted in the past.  Those projects have been spread out over a marking period - one class a week.  This project will be compressed into one week of 5 two and a half hour long sessions.  The amount of time on task will be much greater (roughly 300 minutes more) but the amount of time between sessions will be much smaller.  That will result in less time thinking instead of doing and less out of class time working on the project.  It will be interesting to see what happens. 

This fall I read A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger, and I'm trying to incorporate his research into this project. This book wasn't necessarily written to the Genius Hour community, but it's all about inquiry as a teaching and business model -- something us Genius Hour teachers get all nerdy about.  

I required students to use the 5 Whys for their proposals.  See my example to them below. 

My 5 Why Conversation: 

• I am passionate about orphan care.    
• Why are you passionate about orphan care?  
• As an adoptive dad, I have had my eyes opened to the plight of orphans.   
• Why is this such a big deal?  
• There are an estimated 153 orphans in the world today. That's a big deal.   
• Why should I care?  
• James 1:27 makes it clear that God cares about widows and orphans, and I should too.   
• Why does God care about widows and orphans?  
• God always seems to cheer for the underdogs.   
• Why haven't I pondered this more?   

I would like to plan a yard sale to benefit Show Hope, an organization committed to helping orphans find a forever home.  Since this class is only one week long, I will not be able to host the yard sale during class. Instead, I will focus my class time in planning the event. I will need to find a location and date for the yard sale.  I plan to make a Weebly web site to raise awareness of the need and ask my friends and family for donations.  I will then email, Facebook, and tweet that link out to anyone who may be able to help.  As donations roll in, I will add pictures to my web site.  I will also need to be in contact with Show Hope to see how to make the financial donation happen. For Friday's presentation, I will show a page or two of my web site, talk about why I am passionate about orphan care, and plead with my classmates to help.  

I am also requiring them to use the Why-What If-How? format for their daily updates.  See my example below. 

Why would someone donate to my yard sale?  What if I interviewed an adoptive family for my web site?  How would I do that?  It looks like I just created homework for myself. Or... I could send an email to that family in my church that adopted that boy from Ethiopia.  I probably should use my best grammar and ask nicely.   

And now, on to their projects...

• Kate is creating a website about Greek Mythology.
• Nathan is creating his own old-school video game.
• Will is making a motored Lego car.
• Lucas is creating a robot to grab his Kindle when he doesn't want to get off the couch.
• Cooper, Jacob, and Russell are working on making a video about their favorite game, Destiny. 

Stay tuned for updates.  This thing will be over quick.