Countdown to the Conference #2 from R2 YAC

Cole Harper is in the 12th grade at Richland School District Two in Columbia, SC, and co-chair of the Richland School District Two Youth Action Council. With this Countdown to the Conference series, they share their process of preparing workshop sessions for the National Service-Learning Conference® and youthrive PeaceJam Leadership Conference on April 11-14, 2012 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

My last blogspot referred to our Youth Action Council’s saying, “Work hard, party hard and sleep harder.” The closer we get to conference time, our thought process transforms into “work hard, play when it’s appropriate, and hardly sleep.”

Planning for our sessions at the national conference takes a lot of troubleshooting, problem solving and decision making.  Working from our session descriptions and objectives, how do we make our activities fit in our time that we have? And in what order? And who is doing what? And who else is preparing for what else when whoever is doing whatever he or she is doing? Where are my materials? Has anyone seen the scissors? Why? How? Anyone want to take a lunch break and go to Bojangles? What should I have done by the next time we meet? Where’s that timeline we made a few weeks ago? The list goes on and on. Often we run into problems that would make ordinary people cringe, but nothing dampens our spirit or commitment to making service learning fun.

Another of our sayings, we adopted from Joan Liptrot, our BFF and Grand PooBah Director of the Institute for Global Education and Service Learning. Whenever something goes wrong, as it often will, our attitude is, “we’ll make it work.” And, for those who have been or plan on coming to one (or preferably several) of our sessions, you know that we DO make it work (very well if I do say so myself). Good conference session outcomes are the end result of hard work, flexibility, lots of patience and a big sense of team commitment.  In short, our planning starts way before we pack up to meet our flights for the conference city!   

For those of you who can come in to Minneapolis early, join us Wednesday afternoon from 1:00 to 4:00 for our Pre-conference session, Give Youth a Voice: How to Create Real Life Leadership Opportunities. Below is also listing of the Rookie Series Sessions and the student teams that will co-facilitate each. For more information on descriptions, location and times, check out the conference guide.

The Rookie Series – Minneapolis 2012

Making It Meaningful!

Joan Liptrot, Institute for Global Education & Service Learning, Levittown, PA
Brianna Kinney* & Marissa Moran*, IGESL Youth Action Council, Levittown, PA

Understanding and Promoting Youth Voice

Joan Liptrot, Institute for Global Education & Service Learning, Levittown, PA
|Jordanne Harpster* and Kyle Harper*, Richland School District 2, Columbia SC

Reflection for the Rookie

Shira Woolf Cohen, Vice Principal, New Foundations Charter School, Philadelphia, PA & Youth* from NFCS

Standards + Service = Curriculum Integration

Beverly Hiott, Lead Teacher for Service learning & Civic Engagement, Richland School District 2, Columbia, SC
Cole Harper* and Karli Wells*, Richland School District 2, Columbia, SC

Reciprocal Partnerships: Why Should I Work With You?

Tiffany Searles, Out of School Time and Service Learning Coordinator, New Foundations Charter School, Philadelphia & Youth* from NFCS

Progress Monitoring for the Rookie

Christine Moran Ph.D, Immaculata University, Immaculata, PA
Cole Harper* and Kyle Harper*, Richland School District 2, Columbia, SC