Social Action Day

Social Action Day of 2001 | Tentative Calendar | Schedule for the Day
Literature Suggestions for First Multi-Aged Study Group Meeting
Social Action Day of 2002

What Can We Do To Make the World a Better Place? Social Action Day - January 21st, 2002

This year (2001-2002) the committee decided to encourage all members of the Harmony community to make a contribution to the world.

9:00 Opening - By Steve Bonchek - everyone in the gym together

Roc will talk about why he started Harmony, what kinds of things the school and individuals from the school have done to make a difference, the balance of meeting individual needs and making contributions to the community, what's going on now with NSRF and VISTA and Roc's hopes for the future in the way of service learning. Marsha Washington, one of Harmony’s first students, will reminisce about the school 25 years ago and how it has always been a place where seeds are planted for making a difference in the world. Roc will ask people to pay attention to the guests who are making a difference and before the end of the day invite them to try and think of something they'd like to do to contribute to society.

9:45-10:45 Simultaneously:

For younger students - The Civil Rights Rap and the "It Takes a Child" video in Tom's Room
The rap, looking at the three issues about the civil rights movement, acting out the rap the second time it's shown and then show part of the video, "It Takes a Child."(Michele will facilitate)

For older students - The Panel - Civil Liberties and the War Against Terrorism- in the gym
What Can We Do To Protect Civil Liberties during the War Against Terrorism?

Panel members:
Lieutenant Colonel Carl Wayne Pollard
Steve Russell from the Criminal Justice Department
Jeff Melton - Green Party Candidate for Congress

11:00 - 12:00 People From Our Community Who Are Making a Difference

Corinna Manion (Marty) (333-5007) has been working for Midwest Pages for Prisoners. She'd love to come and tell us about the work and about the opening of Boxcar Books and Community Center, Inc. She is on their Board of Directors. She'd like help from students packaging the books for individual prisoners and writing letters to enclose with the books.

Women Working for Peace and Justice (Ursina)

• Rebecca Rail - I.U. student
• Julia Duany from Sudan and her friend, Greg Brown - grassroots peace and reconciliation work
• Someone from Women Studies
• Female representative from Students for a Nonviolent Solution
• Shanna - Dan Sabet's girlfriend who is doing Human Rights work in Mexico

People working to protect our Environment (James)
People involved in tree sitting

Dan Sabet -(SallyAnn) discussing MLK's letter from a Birmingham Jail - MLK's two main issues: appropriate measures and timing and then King lays out his vision of social action and how it should take place

John Liell (Barb) describing his experiences as one of the founders of the local American Civil Liberties Union, his work integrating Monroe County and his work in Indianapolis as part of community action against poverty

Terry Kok -(Tom) he will discuss issues related to the earth, spirituality and freedom of religion and his struggle to create a nature sanctuary

For Younger Kids:
First, students will attend one of the following sessions listed below. When the guest is finished presenting, the Harmony teacher/facilitator will thank the guest profusely and then invite the students to go to the Dance Studio where Kid Kazooey will share some songs about making a difference and tell how music helps cause important changes in our world.

Rudi Romaine- Harmony Student Making a Difference (Katy or David)
Rudi Romaine well describe her experiences raising money for Romania when she was in 4th grade

Rusty Peterson as a VISTA member helping the kids at the Rise get bikes - you'll have to put a few pieces from a bike together yourselves to get the full appreciation for this

Frances (membership chairman) and Clarence (president) Gilliam (Michele) talking about their experiences with the NAACP

Julie Zimmer - (Bill) will tell how she started the recycling program at Harmony School

Reverend Ernie Butler will tell about his Civil Rights work in the 60’s, including marching with Martin Luther King, Jr..

1:00 - 2:00 Multi-Aged Small Groups reading and talking together

Each group reads a story from the book, It's Our World Too. There are 14 stories of young people who are making a difference. We can have 12 groups. (One boy in New Jersey rebuilds bikes and gives them away to kids who don't have bikes!) Each group will be facilitated by a high school student.

Margo Blackwell ( 824-4568 deadcrow1@lycos.com) will discuss her work to stop the incinerator and to raise Buffalo in Monroe county and support Native Americans. She said, "When everyone joins the dance that's when the music begins." - Since she couldn't come at 11:00 she'd like to join one of the Multi-aged groups, tell her story and invite people to get involved in the Buffalo project.

Each group can read together. Perhaps an older student will read out loud and lead the discussion. The kids can talk about what happened, what motivated the person, how they went about doing what they did. Then the kids can decide together whether they will create a common goal for the school or individual ones or some combination. Then they draw or paint a picture of their plan of action. There is a nice discussion of "Ten Tools for Change" in the book if kids need further inspiration.

Gina's art class will take all the pictures of possibilities and create a mural. The class will determine the title of the Mural with input from the school. This will be displayed in People's Park (if Parks and Rec agrees) for a while and then become a permanent display at Harmony School.

In the fall we will touch base and see what projects were completed and talk about how people made a difference.

2:10 Closing

The closing could be an opportunity for some people to volunteer to show their pictures for everyone to see. Zeke will show the video of the Service Learning Class.

Resources that are available to use this week preceding Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday:
"One Million Postcards" - a video about children who wanted to do something about the children in Iraq who have been suffering since the Gulf War

Stories that Mother Teresa Told

Free the Children by Craig Kielburger

"White Wash" - a cartoon video about two friends (one white, one black) and how they handled the situation when children start throwing white paint on the black child to make her white and "acceptable." When we gathered in the gym at the end of the day students came forward and told how they wanted to make a difference. Some said they wanted to get to know more students, some wanted to make everyone feel welcomed at the school. One group had decided

it wanted to support the Outreach Kenya Development volunteers and create a video for children in Kenya that would educate them on avoiding becoming HIV positive. One of our students at Harmony was born HIV positive, so she was extremely motivated in carrying out this project, and she enrolled many others in helping.

Two teachers took this on as sponsors of the group and they offered an afternoon elective class for students of all ages. With the support of the teachers and a wonderful student teacher students wrote the script for the video, acted it out, video taped it and edited the tape. This project provided so much excitement in the school that students in the third/fourth grade class were moved to hold a bookathon in which they got sponsors to pay them for reading books with the intention that the money would go to buy books for the library in Kenya. They raised over $1000

The $200 that was awarded to Harmony by “A Day On! Not a Day Off” was used for materials for the mural. The students who painted the mural decided to emphasize images of peace, environmental consciousness and balance. There is one panel that shows a tree of life. There’s a hate side of the tree that shows war, discrimination and racism, and on the other side there is love which results from trust, hope and peace. They worked on the 5 four by eight panels for four months. The plan is to put this up in People’s Park some time this summer.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday is always a moving time at Harmony School. Everyone was asked to commit to making the world a better place. Many spent the rest of the year trying to do just that. Many were willing to spend time before and after school to make sure the video and the mural were complete. Besides actually making the world better, students realized that this is an important part of being a student at Harmony and a citizen of our society – impacting the world.

 

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