I'm excited and relieved to finally be able to blog about the Teacher as Researcher Grant. I've been working on updating and tweaking the Request for Proposals since December, and the RFP was made public last week. With Cat's assistance, I led a grant information meeting yesterday afternoon. Seven prospective grant writers came to get information and ask questions. After a welcome and introductions, we looked at the resources in the folders (RFP, checklist, rubric, Teacher as Researcher article). In order to model the inquiry mindset, I talked briefly about my own inquiry question (Why are some CFG's more successful than others) and then allowed plenty of time for questions and answers.
One thing that struck me was that the participants talked more about what they would do rather than what they would ask. I hope that the inquiry questions become more focused before the proposals are turned in.
On Tuesday, March 9, the K-16 CFG met at Olle Middle School. Present were Marilyn, Sharon, Lidia, Michaelann, Marcela, Janet, Josephine, Mary, and Donna. We reconnected over sandwiches and lemonade, and began the work of the evening with a team builder.
I started by reading this statement: "Michele called me this morning to let me know how impressed she is with the work of the K-16 CFG. In response, the HAC has just allocated $100,000 to be used strictly as the group identifies. Take a couple of minutes to generate individual wish lists along with some approximate budget figures for each item." (I got this idea from The Big Book of Team Building Games by John Newstrom and Edward Scannell.)
After writing our own lists, we shared and charted our responses. These are the ideas that bubbled up.
•Travel to an out of town workshop.
•Organize a group retreat. [Janet suggested Italy.]
•Find an inquiry project in Hawaii.
•Observe other places. Look for the common ground of success. [Marcela wanted to do the observations in New Zealand and Japan.]
•Make a commitment to journaling throughout the year. Get paid $100 per journal entry. At the end of the year have a writing retreat. Use our journals to write a book. Book royalties would cover what we were paid to journal.
•Pay somebody to document our work.
•Publicity for CFG work. Perhaps pay to produce a documentary.
•Invite motivational speakers to Houston.
•Use the money as seed money to form a business of "Skilled Facilitators Consultants."
•Purchase literature and reading materials. Take paid sabbaticals so we would have time to read and reflect on the literature.
•Individual grants
•Research the connections between our work and other disciplines.
I loved this activity. First of all, I was struck with how this conversation was filled with so much laughter and affirmation. It was just plain fun to imagine spending all that money, even though no one budgeted for the entire $100,000. Secondly, by sharing our wish lists, we came closer to developing a shared dream. I think that several commonalities emerged.
•A desire to spread our work (writing, consulting, publicizing).
•A desire to learn about others' best practices (reading literature, observing, attending workshops, inviting speakers).
•I'm not sure how to word this, but there seems to be a desire to be more deliberate with our own work--to give time and space to the steps that are too often left out of our own journeys (journaling, documenting, reading, researching, connecting).
•A desire to travel :-)
So what are the next steps? I don't want the excitement that was generated from this exercise to evaporate. I want us to dive in and take our work to a deeper level.
The second part of the meeting was devoted to Marcela sharing a work in progress and soliciting feedback using the Issaquah Protocol. [Marcela, perhaps you could add some reflections about that experience in the comments section.] I appreciated that Marcela had searched the CD for a different protocol to apply to her work. Using unfamiliar protocols helps freshen the process of looking at each other's work.
REFLECTIONS
As always, wonderful opportunity for renewal. So good to see everyone and hear different voices.
The protocol worked really well for me. It helped clarify the dilemma and I did get ideas on how to measure (at least for me) the value of what we will do with kids. It also supported ideas I was unsure of. I think Michaelann did a wonderful job in facilitating!!
Fantastic!
I enjoyed the new protocol. I like trying new ones, even though I didn’t like the flow of this one very much.
Great team builder! Good discussion came from it.
Good discussion in general—although I think it is important for presenters to get a facilitator and discuss the presentation before the meeting—the flow is better. . . .
This group is very invigorating. I always learn from you! Thank you very much.
Now that I’m out in the “world” I see (more) the value of this work. It can be applied in so many different contexts. We really must figure out how to grow it more expansively!
The protocol, Issaquah, was different, or maybe it was the situation presented.
I liked the teambuilding activity. It make me dream or visualize a time when our group may get together and retreat or go to a workshop.
Once again, I enjoy the dynamic of people getting together and throwing ideas off each other. I appreciate the fact that Marcela shared her project with us. I would like her to come back and update us on her progress. We, as a group, are a work in progress.
I enjoyed the experience of using a new protocol. The Issaquah Coaching Protocol mirrors Cognitive Coaching.
It is also great getting to know the members of the group. It concerns me that I don’t recall everyone’s name but I believe that we all believe in the work so much that we don’t have an issue with confidentiality.
I’m glad I came today. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the members of this group and it was great to connect again. I enjoyed doing the Issaquah protocol and would like an opportunity to try it again.
The new protocol was interesting.
What struck me was how much people in our group still do not value their own self-worth—as seen by the ideas for the team builder idea of bringing in people.
I thought it was fun to learn about a new protocol.
It was fun having the same people and to have some old people back.
In the September 2003 issue of O Magazine (p.232), there is an article about women who really make a difference in their communities. Deborah Bial is featured as the "founding partner of the Posse Foundation, which works with universities to send groups of underprivileged high school students to college with full tuition scholarships." Here's a quote from the interview:
"How did you get the idea? I was working at a youth leadership program in New York with a bunch of really smart, talented kids from public schools. We were watching them graduate from high school, go off to college, and then come back six months later, having dropped out. We organized a focus group to ask what happened, and one kid said to us, 'I never would have dropped out if I had my posse with me.' And I thought, What a simple, good idea. Why not send a team of kids to college? That way they could back one another up."
I wonder if this idea can be applied to our New CFG Coach Seminars. I think that one reason that CFG's were initially so successful at my school is that we had a "posse" of coaches that loved the work and held each other accountable. Importantly, that posse included an administrator who helped imbed CFG practices into the school. However, in recent years we've trained many people who would be the only trained coach on that campus. I worry about how successful they can be without a built-in support system.