How Could I Say No?

With all the craze in fidget spinning I found it hard to say no. Sure, I put up the sign in my classroom that read "At Your Own Risk" and asked boys to put them away. I also read articles from many perspectives about these "toys".  Should we encourage the madness, discourage the craze, be more sensitive to those who need these to stay focussed, ban them from our classrooms? 

I didn't know the answer.  What I did know is that I had 20 or so 6th graders saying, "We need custom spinners for our Kiva Project".  We set up a circle graph of which the different companies, who were now fully paid back, could buy into this new concept/idea if they had enough money to do so.  They contacted a company to see if "backordered til late May" really meant that or could we get our hands on a few.  Then we looked into buying options, coupon codes and applied our new knowledge about algebraic equations to figure out what we could afford 100? 150? 200? More?

With a $50 coupon, if you spent $500 the boys would get a $50 off coupon.  So, we set up their algebraic equation for the $2.45 unit price spinners with a $50 set up fee.  $2.45x + 50 = 500.  Soon we were talking about purchasing 185 spinners for the same cost as 171.  The unit price went down from $2.54 all inclusive from $2.74 too.  

And it happened...  6 out of 8 groups pooled together $470 to buy 185 fidget spinners with the hopes of doubling their money.  We waited, and stressed, will they arrive? And guess what? They did!!! And, even the Assistant Head of School was purchasing them!! And we did double our money:) 

Gender Equity #worldslargestlesson

With the help of Emma Watson, and World's Largest Lesson, the 6th grade boys looked into Gender Equity issues for a few days in math class.  After learning a little bit about what the Global Goals are in advisory, the boys took a two day deep dive into Gender Equity.  The conversation was thoughtful and engaging and full of multiple perspectives.  I am always impressed with how much 12 year olds KNOW on one hand and how little they KNOW on the other.  This is going to be a fun year for sure:)

More engaging conversation into gender equity to come through the lens of poverty as we embrace micro finance and poverty in the days and months to come. Stay tuned! But for now, check out my lesson slides, World's Largest Lesson website and the results of our survey as seen in the graph below.  We also computed mean, median and modes and talking about statistical questions to be explored in our our future. 

Little Changes in the Hope of Making A Big Difference

The 6th graders have been busy working on their Kiva Advertisement project.  While I haven't had an opportunity to post, it's not because we haven't been working.  As in years past, I introduced the project with the driving question, How can we create advertisements that encourage new and existing kiva lenders to make a loan in _(blank)__ geographic area? In addition to that driving question, and inspired alongside my own grad school work on research, I decided to concentrate on the following questions:

How can we be better consumers of statistical representations?

How can we be better creators of statistical representations?

My goal for the Kiva project this year, on top of getting my students to empower many lives across the globe, is take a look at the rubrics, grading process, research components and intentionality of everything we do.  The first stop on this "Year of Change" was to recruit the help of the library team in the hopes that we could create some common language, reinforce protocols for using sources, and discuss citations. We got this and a whole lot more.

Ms Stuart visited our classroom after the launch and provided examples of advertisements that were much more similar to what we were looking for then the examples I had been able to provide in the past.  While I had never heard of Ad Council, I certainly had a good time reminiscing about some of their famous commercials, "This is drugs, this is your brain on drugs, any questions?".  To learn more about Ad Council you can watch this quick video .  Ad Council fits right into what we are trying to accomplish in our project and I am so glad Ms. Stuart introduced us.

The boys were not only engaged in the examples provided but they were also very knowledgeable abut appropriate sources, creative commons and the libraries resources.  So, I pushed them on their way to discover a little bit about Kiva and the countries they decided to focus on.  At this point, they have all had short interviews with me where they presented the statistics they are going to use to convince others and are about to begin creating.  Commercials, Infographic Posters, Brochures and more... all coming your way soon from the GARAGE! Stay tuned, we are just getting started!

What a finish!

What a YEAR!

2014-2015 

When it was all said and done and the boys said goodbye to 6th grade, I sure hope they felt good about what they accomplished in math class.  Not only did they learn real practical skills that can be applied to life (collaboration, problem solving, perseverance and inquiry to name a few), the in's and outs of small businesses ownership, social entrepreneurship, and financial literacy but they also learned about the financial status and lifestyles of others across the globe through math lessons.  The were empowered by the faculty and staff of Town to help alleviate poverty through lending and from what I saw, they felt good doing so.  

During the last two weeks of school the, the Town School borrowers collaborated, pooled their money and energy and went for a final push to clear out all existing product and create a joint product that students would talk about.  Through inquiry, problem solving, price point checking and coupon searching, the boys came up with Town Tiger Sunglasses that were certainly a hit! With each group contributing $30 to the product, they not only saw their contribution double in a few days, but they felt the excitement of being able to empower more borrowers through intentional giving.  

And while the boys finished school a week ago, and likely the excitement for lending has been replaced with the energy and thrill of  vacation, I am proud to announce the final numbers on the lending team of 2014-2015.

$1010.17 in profits/loans to Kiva.

$41.95 in donations to Kiva  

In addition to the 36 loans they were able to complete before summer, they have 4 more loans waiting for the Kiva Council to lend in September and the extra $10.17 was added to the donation.  Well done.  Rest well this summer boys, knowing you made a difference. 

Stay tuned for next year...

Educating About Kiva = Change Makers?

The 6th grade boys have been actively educating our K-8 community about kiva.org.  Visiting classrooms, creating developmentally appropriate presentations and asking and answering tough questions truly allows me to see the knowledge and skills they have attained through this project thus far and the empathy they are feeling for others across the world.  

The boys have presented to many grade levels and grandparents/special friends over the course of the last few weeks.  They have gotten good at feeding their peers questions in order to round out the presentations, speak firmly about their thoughts and answer tough questions about the importance of micro finance, the issues with global poverty, what's been their favorite part about working with Kiva and my fave from a 2nd grader...

“So would you consider yourselves change makers?”

— Town School 2nd Grader

In addition to a clear introduction and a Q and A session many of the groups presented the boys with a multimedia component.  Take a moment to enjoy.  More on they way!

Kindergarten-Second Grade

Kiva as Superhero's - Poverty the Villain

Third-Fourth Grade

About Kiva

Upper School and Greater Community

Save a Life (New Version Coming Soon)

What is Kiva?