Tagged: Ivo

Ivo Final Reflection

Well, I think my class for the Teach-In went well.  It was good for what we had to work with and I am satisfied with the results.  Most of the students were entertained by the activity and seemed to learn a lot from out power point/movie in the beginning.  Some students seemed very enthusiastic, one group of four even managed to make 60 pencils!  Another element that seemed to go well was the quiz in the beginning.  The students were asked to fill out a simple quiz without pencils.  It was effective in showing them how children in schools with little supplies must feel and also really jump started the whole lesson.  It was interesting being a teacher for a while, much better than some lessons we taught in science.  One child was particularly difficult but with the help of our supervising teacher we solved the problem quickly and efficiently.  I think it would have been better if we had less people to teach though because some people did not speak much while others like me were forced to take the initiative.

If I were able to do it over I would have had less people in my group which had been a big problem during the creation of the lesson and the presentation.  Also I might have added the logo or website of Getting Tools to City Schools somewhere on the pencils because  the message and way to help might be clearer.  Not speaking strictly about not what I could have done differently but more about he structure of the project I think it would have made a huge difference if each student wrote a separate and different from the other members in the group and then the teacher would select one after edits were made to be used as the class.  Also if this all happened before the actual teach-in started it would be less stress full and actually be a proposal.  The last thing I think we could have improved was our presentation.  If we had time to run through the whole presentation a second time the day before the teach in we could have made some last minute changes and been better rehearsed.

What really stuck with me after the project is that to some of these kids school is there only hope.  It is all they have.

Well the best par of my set up group is we actually managed to finish.  I was assigned the PSA slide show and at one point it seemed like nothing was going to work.  But then out of no where one of my classmates finished the whole thing (Thank You Nora).  For next year smaller groups, better background checks on the organization (Some of the organization we volunteered for did not except volunteers from NYC), what I said before about the proposals, and lastly instead of just giving the people who work less bad grades I think they should be forced to help more because if they don’t work it brings down the groups performance.

Here is the link to the PSA sideshow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya076fVxWDM&feature=player_embedded

Ivo Ilic-4/14/10-Getting Tools to City Schools

It was my 5th and final visit for the LREI 8th grade Social Justice project.  As usual we met Dennis after school in the library.  We found out that Dennis had spoken to our principle, Mark, and that they had decided on a plan to raise money for the binders.  In a few weeks everyone in the middle school would receive a form or slip of some kind to use to track chores done for parents or neighbors.  The students would earn money by completing chores and then donate that money to the organization.  It seems like a good idea and I hope it works.  Next the whole group except for me was supposed to hang up a chart of our progress made last visit (I was not present).  I was supposed to find Carin in the mean time to ask her what needed to be done for the chocolate bars.  I was not able to find her so I helped the others hang the chart.  After we had finished we went back to the library.  Dennis told us how very soon we would have to make the final push to get all the supplies by the end of the school year.  He gave us a sort of pep talk and told us we would have to be leaders in the campaign.  He asked me to stay behind when the others left to post the PSAs (Public Services Announcements) we  had created in class on the organizations facebook page.  It took a while but I managed to post them. Click on the image below to see them.

Ivo's PSA

Ivo Ilic-2/3/10-Getting Tools to City Schools

Today Jason, Ben, Miral, Bryce, and me met Dennis Kitchen (Our Contact) at LREI at 4:00.  We spoke awhile about what his organization did and about what we could do.  He showed us this video  Getting Tools to City Schools Video of a teacher talking about her school.  We discussed different ideas for raising money and helping out.  Ben asked if he could place a box like the one in the lobby in one of the NYU dorms because a lot of the students there probably have extra materials.  I suggested we make a poster with a chart to place next to the box in the lobby in order to show what we are missing and what we have collected.  Dennis then told us we needed a place to put all the materials we had gathered so far.  We found a spot in Sarah’s room on top of a closet to store the materials.  We then had to bring the box of supplies from the lobby to the room.  The box was falling apart so for the first part of the move we slid it.  Later we lifted it with the help of the Admissions Office who insisted we were going to hurt ourselves.  We then sorted all the items in the box and counted them up.  I don’t have all the numbers but I know there were around 48 binders, 36 pencil pouches, and enough pencils for over 400 students.   Dennis told us that we needed around 300 binders with 5 pencils, 5 pens, pencil pouches, 50 sheets of paper, and 5 three holed binder dividers.  We have already collected enough pencils but in all the other categories we are lacking.  We are still brain storming ideas for getting more donations.  Please donate supplies by placing them in the box in the lobby.  Thank You.