By Michael Clemons | Founder
When is the last time you did something for the first time?
2019 has been a year of many firsts. Watching children run into a room late when Araki-sensei has already started the IchigoJam coding session, looking up at the board...searching for the letters on the keyboard. Hitting save, unplugging the chip, walking over to the robot and inserting it and bringing the robot alive.
Haba-sensei and Jason sensei working with David-sensei to introduce Scratch and weekly lessons to bring them to the point where they can confidently say that they programmed their robots from start to finish.
Gerhard-sensei meeting the kids at St.Francis and it first being three kids then six then 13. Going from all boys to boys and girls. The older kids teaching the younger kids.
Juna sensei and Mayuko-sensei working with the kids at Fukushima Aiikuen to launch a drone to take video from the clouds.
Victor-sensei working with Sendai Tensien to get them set up start lessons with Natt-sensei.
The first half of 2019 was sparking the interest of the children with the possibilities. We then watched and responded to their interests. The second half of the year has been focused on more hard skills towards their futures. Juna was trained on how to be a facilitator of Financial Literacy (MONEY CONNECTION) and LIFE CONNECTION a program on how to put a plan in place for dealing with things that come the children's way in their lives. The financial literacy program raises awareness around finances and how much they will need to earn to be on their own. We then are having them take career assessment tests to highlight the possibilities for them to seek employment but more importantly to be mentored on the skill sets needed to pursue those roles.
These are then organized in portfolios for each kid to track their progress towards these goals. We are also tracking all graduating high school students and their plans post leaving the homes and wanting to keep in touch for future networking possibilities.
When is the last time did something for the first time....and what is next? What is the future of learning? What is worth knowing?
"If children are allowed to wander in a chaotic fashion they will crystalize around big ideas and at the edge of chaos, everything happens. The future is rushing at us and we need to prepare our children for the new world that we are going towards." Sugata Mitra SCHOOL IN THE CLOUD
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