Thursday March 28th 2013

Today was the last day of Multicultural Week. There were multiple speakers that came in that included people from outside businesses (like World Relief) and students! 

In one of the presentations four volunteers were asked to come onto the stage. The group of students presenting were all Hmong and could fluently speak it. The presenters started by reading a story in Hmong and then asking multiple choice questions (still in Hmong) to the volunteers. Of course the volunteers had no idea what anything meant. The point of the presentation was to put students at North in the position that many refugees are put in when they come to America. Many refugees can't speak English and it is very frustrating when you can't communicate with anyone. At North there are more refugee students than you would think!

The exposure of cultures is a an amazing opportunity to have. This was greatly shown today as Communities attended to North's Multicultural week. Where Ailen Chiesa, a foreign exchange student from Argentina, spoke of her life in Argentina and the beautiful culture they have there. Like the dances and their most talked about sport; soccer and pato. Argentina is a similar country to America with a democratic government with a female president! We were also I introduced to the Chinese culture by North's own Taylor Buman. She is a student at north who attended school in China for nine months. However, much of what she learned could not be told as she was cut by the bell. She was able to teach us some phrases she often used like "Wo Bu Zhidao" which means I don't know! Although, the presentations were a brief view of Argentina and China it was an amazing opportunity. Thank you to all those who presented and who are going to. It is opportunity that should be shown more. So, like here at Communities, get students involved!

Community Culture Night

Last night was Community Culture night! Many people in the community came and it was a bog success. There was an especially big crowd between 4 and 5. All of the booths were a big hit. The French club had a France booth that made crêpes, they were a crowd favorite. Many other booths had food samples. Another common thing was coloring pages. All of the kids that came seemed to be having a great time.

First Day of Multicultural Week!

                                   
This week at Oshkosh North is Multicultural Week! The students in Communities have been working long and hard on getting ready for this week, which will be very busy. To kick off this week, two big events were going on. First, some students from Communities have been working hard on trying to get the whole school to wear purple, to bring awareness to women in countries that are getting education so that they can live better lives. Much of the student and staff body wore purple, so purple day was a success!
Also today, the entire student body attended an assembly, where there was an extremely entertaining guest speaker. A student from Communities did a great job introducing this quest speaker named Tou Ger Xiong, who is often called "Two". Two is an immigrant from Laos and spoke about his story and how he is sick of people being treated horribly because of the way they look, act, or speak. Students were extremely intrigued and learned more about diversity and the Hmong culture. Two did an amazing time kicking off Multicultural Week and teaching kids about immigration and diversity. Two said, "We're all so different, but yet all the same..." He went on to explain how everyone is different and how everyone needs to be treated with respect.

 Results for Communities first clothing drive was successful. With a total of around 300 items! Yet, It is the cause that made this drive a success. For, all the clothes donated will be sent to refugee families in Thailand. Furthermore, the clothing drive is only a part of helping this cause. Salina and Chee Xiong of the program have stepped forward by setting up a fundraiser; One For Five. By donating one dollar it helps feed five refugees. Their fundraiser begins on Monday in addition, round two of  the clothing drive. Come support if you can by helping the cause.

  Note taking; a simple skill, but learning to do it right is the key to success. And the amount of speakers that Communities receives called for a workshop on note taking. This concept was emphasized as Mr. Leib, who taught the workshop, told of his successes. This included growth of his travel agency and the blissful grants Communities has received. Furthermore, note taking was emphasized as a needed 21st century skill. In order to see more meaning messages in the world around us. One example was the video shared today of David Binder; a speaker for TED talks. The video was used to practice taking key notes and then later discuss what we found. The results were surprising and the message of the video was clearly received .Note taking correctly helps to focus on the bigger and more meaningful message. So, what better place to teach this concept than at Communities.

Tuesday March 19th, 2013

As normal, today students had options when it came to workshops. Some included science benchmarks, organizational work, and filming projects for Multicultural Week. There was also some about 21st century skills. 

A lot of times we talk about 21st century skills at Communities. But what are they? 21st century skills include things like critical thinking, collaborating, flexibility, initiative, leadership, technology skills, and much more. These are all things that are helpful in the real world! Staff have been encouraging and helping students to improve these skills all year long. Recently we received textbooks from Zaner-Bloser that are about 21st century skills. The book is called "Inquire". Books haven't be distributed to students yet but they will certainly be helpful in the future!

Monday March 18, 2013

 

Today in Communities, students had to attend a workshop where they presented what they were doing for the Multicultural project. They received feedback on how their project was and received suggestions as to how to improve them.

They then had another workshop to attend. They either went to a Literacy workshop, a 21st century skills workshop, or a veterans event workshop. In the literacy workshop the students learned about what they will be doing this week. In the 21st century skills workshop, students learned more about how to use their school emails even better. In the veterans event workshop, the students went over what they are doing and got more information about what they will be doing from Mr. Lieb.

Finally, during the last part of the day, students had a chance to tell the entire group what they will be doing for their projects and the whole group was able to give feedback.

Celebrations- Friday March 15th, 2013

Today in Communities we had a guest speaker from World Relief come in and speak to the students about his job, which was to help settle refugees here in Wisconsin. He spoke to the whole group, then to a smaller group of students that could use his expertise with their Multicultural projects.

We also had the traditional Celebrations with students today, but with a bit of a twist. The Celebrations time is a time for all of Communities to celebrate the week and have a raffle conducted by Mr. Schinkten. Students at this time are able to nominate other students and teachers for something that they have done which they think is worthy of being reconized and deserving to recieve another ticket for the raffle. Some groups of students spoke to the group about what they're doing. One group spoke about the clothing drive that they're having and turning into an Advisory Challenge. Advisory challenges are competitions between the advisories. Another group who spoke was the Apparel Committee, who spoke about how the students are going to have the chance to design the first t-shirt for Communities. The t-shirt design has to include the Communities logo.

  Mrs. Goff, ELL teacher, met with Communities students to introduce plans for North's upcoming Multicultural Week March 22-24.Multicultural Week is a huge opportunity for students to present and view all the diverse cultures within our school. Therefore, Communities has partnered with Mrs.Goff and Mrs.Morill directors of this years' Multicultural week. The meeting with Mrs.Goff began with the introduction of Touger Xiong who will present during Multicultural Week. He is well known by educators for his style of promoting education to all students. Like shown to the right, where he uses rap to introduce himself. The students' meeting with Mrs. Goff discussed the set up, who would be introducing presenters, and sign-ups for classes to attend presentation, all in order to make Multicultural Week a success.

March 12 2013

Today was a fairly normal day in communities. We had workshops all day. One of those workshops Mrs. Goff came to talk to us about Community Culture Night. Community Culture Night will be held on Tuesday March 26. It will be an event open to everyone to come and learn about other cultures through games and other fun activities. Mrs. Goff is in charge of Multicultural week, and today she came to talk to us about our ideas for Community Culture Night. She also encouraged us to help promote it by making posters and telling people about it. Mrs. Goff will be coming back Thursday for another workshop talking about Multicultural week.

Marketing 101- Monday, March 11th, 2013

Today in Communities Mrs. Penzenstadler came in to speak with students about the "do's and don'ts" of marketing. She works for a marketing business. Students who are promoting the Veterans event in April and who are promoting the Multicultural Night at North were encouraged to attend. She spoke about how it is important that whenever you're promoting an event to plan ahead, to have a good pitch, and to make sure that the consumer knows why your product/event would help/entertain them. She gave some great tips as to how to market, like the community reporter section of the Oshkosh Northwestern. This section of the newspaper can be a great tool to help promote events, if written well! The students took great notes and asked great questions! Students found the time spent with Mrs. Penzenstadler was extremely helpful!

Far and Away was where the minds of Communities stayed today. This is somewhat true as the schedule today was devoted to watch the movie Far and Away. The video showed a peek of the little and unaccepted diversity in America's mid 1800s, which improved the students understanding of our next unit multiculturalism. The video was an educational experience, but students were engaged with the characters and their obstacles and the overall experience became better. The movie was an interesting and beneficial video for the students to focus on today.

Thursday March 7th, 2013

Credit to Jeannette Merten from the Oshkosh Northwestern

Communities continued on as planned even though two of the teachers, Mr. Weber and Mr. Leib, were gone. They were gone because the Oshkosh North Boys Basketball team will be playing in the State Tournament this Friday at 6:35pm at the Kohl Center on the campus of the UWMadison. Since they're coaches they will be gone but multiple students from Communities will also be playing. Communities wishes the boys good luck on Friday against Germantown as well as the girls good luck tonight against Neenah!



Today was full of different workshops. One of the workshops was specifically for Biology students and had to deal with genetics. Students chose letters out of a bucket to create genotypes (like Aa or AA for example). Then they figured out the phenotype (two body segments for example) and created marshmallow creatures!

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

Today Communities students went to a presentation given by fox valley tech, about computers, and websites. When they weren't in the presentation they were working on their veteran projects. Or starting on their next project Multicultures.

Monday, March 4th, 2013

Today was a day of lots of work, in Communities, today students finished editing their veteran video clips. The clips will be posted on a website very soon, and we'll get you the address once the clips are on there. Also students watched other students clips and gave feed back, so they could fix them to make them even better.

Friday, March 1st, 2013

Today was a pretty fun day in Communities. To start the day off, they started with advisory. Then they went off to their various workshops, where some people put a few last minute fixes on their clips to show, to their groups for feedback on how to make their clips just a little better. Then they went to those groups for some peer feedback. Lastly they had celebration, everyone started with one ticket for a chance to win some prizes, the teachers gave some tickets to those students who worked really hard or did something extraordinary, also some students gave tickets to those they thought deserved some for a good deed they did. Stay tuned to next week, for some more news about what's happening in Communities.