Communicative skills

As a part of our project we were trained to communicate, so I'd like to share about the way it went...
At the first time I was really shocked to face that I'm a little bit, but SHY person, and as you now it's the first enemy of communication. The point is that in this way your dialog turns out as a play, because your words sound as you were looking for them the whole life... In a word, not a good thing:). However some time of practice took it away. The other thing that I've learnt is body-language. You know there is a joke:
" -How many languages you speak?
   -Two.
   -???
   -My native & body.  "
Actually, after our class I don't think that it's a joke, because we can "speak" with our bodies. However, there is another thing, that, actually, we can "tell" something that we didn't want to with our bodies or we can even be rude. So practice did help a lot in this way also.
In conclusion, I'd like to say that these two things turned out really important for me.

Some things we should think about

Well, I was trying to decide what topic to choose. Actually I wanted to post something really useful, some things, which are simply the truth of our life and to which we are too busy to pay attention. So, here they are...

"It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an
hour to like someone, and a day to love someone-but it

takes a lifetime to forget someone."

"Always put yourself in the other's shoes. If you feel that it

hurts you, it probably hurts the person too."

 

"A careless word may kindle strife. A cruel word may wreck
a life. A timely word may level stress. But a loving word may
heal and bless."

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell

And now I would like to present you a story that was written by Russian writer Lermantov and has ben translated into English...

"On the first day God created the dog. God said, "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years." The dog said, "That's too long to be barking. Give me ten years and I'll give you back the other ten." 

So God agreed.

On the second day God created the monkey. God said, "Entertain people, do monkey tricks and make them laugh. I'll give you a twenty-year life span." The monkey said, "Monkey tricks for twenty years? I don't think so. Dog gave you back ten, so that's what I'll do too, okay?"
And God agreed.

On the third day God created the cow. "You must go to the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves, and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life span of sixty years."
The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. Let me have twenty and I'll give back the other forty."
And God agreed again.

On the fourth day God created man. God said, "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. I'll give you twenty years."
Man said, "What? Only twenty years? Tell you what, I'll take my twenty, and the forty the cow gave back, and the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back, that makes eighty, okay?"

Okay," said God, "You've got a deal."

So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy ourselves; the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family; the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren; and the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you."

I guess, we should think now... 

 

The project that will have enduring ties and loads of happiness

        Well, the project that was chosen to be continued is about special education children. Our goal is to make the most comfortable atmosphere for them to study, to make new friends and simply to have fun at school. So, I'd like to share my thoughts and teem's steps during the whole process of reaching our goal.
         First, when I've heard that this project was chosen, I'd already done some kind of the same thing, the difference was only one: children, with whom I used to play and tudor in Russia, are homeless. In a word, I knew what to expect, I knew that a lot should be done and everybody should work hard to make our communication comfortable. But the thing that inspired me, the thing that rejoiced me was that all the children, with whom we are working, will get as much warmth as they need and as much friends, or even more, as they need to realize that we are always there for them to help.
         Second, when we've started creating our project, the first step was to divide into two groups: "tudor"& "games", to make questions for the teacher, who works with special education kids and who agreed to come to share his experience with us. I'm in a "tudor" group, so we had a bunch of questions, but  I had a question that worried me a lot:"Will it be okay for children to talk to me, because of the accent, so will it be okay for them to listen to "not clean"language?"
          Third, we finally had a chance to talk to this teacher, he introduced us all the kids we have (power point presentation). Also he answered all of our questions that we had, I  received  the answer on my question. So I was said that there were no reasons to worry about the accent, that rejoiced me a lot. We've learnt about everyone's personality and it helped us to understand who would have similar character with each special education student. And actually it DID help a lot.
           Forth, we started practicing our communicative skills. It was a lot of fun, although I faced that there are some things in my personality that I should work hard on. I didn't actually expect myself to be a little, but SHY person, I didn't expect that each time I'm talking, I really SHOULD watch my words not to hurt someone's feelings. Really, I didn't even care before to smile a lot   and try to find and to tell about positives of your talk partner. So this step did take tome to work on myself.
           Fifth, we have finally had a chance to meet our children and to talk to them. We've called it "wii operation", so we gave as a Christmas present for kids wii, which was provided by student councils. That was an amazing day, we sang a song for children and introduced ourselves. We gave them a present and they were very happy to meet us all...
          Now, I can't wait to see them again, to talk to and simply have fun together!!!

First project

Our group: Ellen, Ashly, Agerim & Vera(me)

Problem: Freshman no interactions with seniors 

Statement: Freshman grade in our school should feel comfortable , NOT scared

PDSA

Plan: 

• Brain storming

1. Buddy system
2. Motivation
3. Team games, NOT class games
4. Team game pep assembly

• Code of cooperation

1. Listen
2. Say every idea
3. Respect
4. Stay open minded
5. Follow procedure

Do: 

Survey #1 (all) (in a pie chart)

 "How do you feel about other grades?"

• comfortable / really good
• they scare me
• Okay
• Dislike strongly
• Not sure

Survey #2 (seniors & juniors) (in a pie chart)

"How did you feel when you were a freshman?"

• scared
• comfortable
• okay
• awful
• I don't remember

Survey #3 (sophomores) ( in a pie chart)

" Compared to the last year, this year I feel more _______."

• comfortable 
• scared 
• same

Survey #4 (teachers) (in a bar charts)

1. "How do you feel the grade level interaction?"
2. "What do you want to see changed?"

Study: 

According to survey #1:

• comfortable / really good - 58.8%
• scared - 9.2%
• dislike strongly - 13.4%
• not sure - 18.5%

According to survey #2:

• scared - 10.6%
• comfortable - 34%
• okay - 38.3%
• I don't remember -14.9%

According to survey #3:

• more comfortable - 53.8%
• more scared - 3.8%
• same - 42.3%

     According to the teachers survey, the interaction between upper and lower grades is NOT good and it DOES need to be changed.

     So, this problem does take place in our school

                                        WHY?

Seniors and juniors are "too cool"

                                        WHY?

They want to look more experienced

                                        WHY? 

They've already done it

                                        WHY?

Age Factors

                                        WHY?

Ride and revenge

There are several things that we could do better:

If we had less choices in surveys - then people would think more - then we would have less approximate results - then we would understand the problem better

Act: This problem DOES take place, but it's not really sharp. There was another sharp problem about special education students, so we decided to give an effort of actions to that problem.

Project organizers or things that will help you to succeed with your plan

Well, at about three weeks ago we've learnt how to organize and to succeed with your project. It was before our first project started. So, talking about these projects and our success and fails, I'd like to list our "organize-helpers" to avoid misunderstandings in future.

• PDSA model

P stands  for  "plan",  which means that you have to plan all your actions ( surveys, information that you'll need, possible outcomes, inputs) FIRST
D stands for  "do" , exactly it means: do everything you planed before  
S stands for  "study", study all the outcomes of things that you did before , study all the materials that can help you
A stands for "act" , according to the results which you've got in the "study" section, act to abolish your problem

• SYSTEM ANALYSIS

The whole system is supported by several small, but very important things: input makes the difference between "good" and "perfect", the more you put into your system, the better result you will get; methods show you which of them will make the system work; materials you'll need to know about your system;  needs are things that you'll need , without  them the whole system stops working; outputs depend on the outcomes, they show what degree of effort  you'll need to make your system work perfectly; environment  is really important, because each system needs its own environment; people they are exactly the thing that can be called the brain of the system, people plan everything to make the system work; machines help the process, they make it more easy.

• IF - THEN model

This model is really important for "study" section (PDSA), I mean, when you have a result you can say "IF that was done in another way , THEN the result would be better". What is more this model has a curve illustration, so you can create your first "IF", to get your first "THEN" and to continue working this way to study all the fails of your "plan"&"do" sections. This does help to get a better result in actions.

• 5 WHYS

This "organize-helper" can be really useful in two sections: "plan" & "study". First, when you plan your project you ask "why does this happen?" then you answer " because..." after this you ask another "why" to your reply and it happens 5 times. So it helps to see the problem globally  and to find the way to abolish it. Second, for your "study" section  you can take your "do" fails and ask "why did it happen?", so you'll get a better result in your actions.

S.P.O.R.T. speeh

Please, raise your hand who is alive in this room...ok...Now, people who are involved in sport, please  leave your hand up...well...you...yes,you...Why did you put your hand down? Have you ever heard that 99% of all the population of the Earth is involved in S.P.O.R.T.? Well, what is sport for you? There five things which sport stands for : S - success, P - progress, 0 - opportunity, R - risk, T - Triumph... So each period of our life is sport. (slide show raiders) Now you can see that our life is sport and if you are alive that maens you are in sport...well... you need an example? Shopping is sport)))  You have an opportunity to choose clothes, while you are looking for it, that's a progress, then when you've found one you like, it's a  success, after comes a risk to wear it and at the end you have triumph, because everybody likes it)))) So sport helps us  to reach a goal, thats why we use it a lot and I wish you will never forget it, because you are leaders...

What is my goal?

• to reply all the emails I'll get
• to help at least 1 person with a very useful advice
• to learn smth new in American culture
• to meet at least 10 new people
• to recieve a reply to my volunteer lettter