Dodgeball, Career Options, and Pick-up Lines: Highlights of the day in Cap-Haitien

Our team split into four groups today:
-Bruce did some follow-up special education work
-our Laurier Enactus group spent the day at the centre where they are supporting the micro-credit
-our "French leadership participants" had meetings at College Notre Dame to plan some workshops on math/science
 -the fourth group - our Laurier B.Ed. students - is the focus of today's blog post...

We started today by visiting College Regina Assumpta, a school we have worked with in the past. Our B.Ed. students spent the morning working in two classes where the teacher failed to show up to teach! The Regina students loved the opportunity to interact with our Laurier students and our students are looking forward to returning tomorrow for a giant game of dodgeball! Our group loved watching the girls play dodgeball ... there was some serious competition and cheering when a team won!

Three of us then went to College Susan Shenky to talk with the Philo (gr. 13) students about career options. It was interesting to hear how many wanted to be doctors. We discussed this later ... perhaps so many want to be a doctor due to the prestige, job security, and income. However, clearly not everyone would be a doctor in the room of 50 or so students. So we tried to encourage them to consider their skills and attributes in relationship to other career options.

In the afternoon, our Laurier B.Ed. students spent time at Susan Shenky working on conversational English skills. Some students worked on food items from Canadian grocery fliers ...

In the other group, I loved watching the students work on their "pick-up" lines (really, just casual interactions between friends!). Although parts of the lines were scripted, the students completely engaged in the roles! The highlight of the afternoon was one of the students singing a Celine Dion song ... with the whole class joining in!

 

We were delighted to welcome Rob McBride to our team today. Rob is a BlackBerry executive who has been a significant supporter of the work we have been doing in Haiti. Our team is now complete!

School visits and first day of ESL teaching in Cap-Haitien, Haiti

What an amazing first day we have had in Cap! It's always great to come back here and this trip is no exception to that statement. It is particularly rewarding to be part of such a strong group ... a real tradition for the Laurier team!

Our morning was spent touring three schools including College Regina Assumpta with which we have had a strong relationship for a number of years (picture below of primary students at Regina):

We also visited the Nutrition Centre, a Haitian NGO that Laurier has supported through the donation of some laptops. Pictured below is the nurse who is on staff; she is entering information about children's development stages into an Excel file.

In the afternoon, the Laurier Enactus students learned more about the micro-credit program at the Nutrition Centre and started planning for their support of this project. The Laurier Education students started their ESL program at College Susan Shenky. I was so proud of our students as they quickly engaged the senior high school students in conversational English. Everyone left the classes eagerly anticipating tomorrow's classes!

There are a lot of exciting things planned for the days ahead ... support of English language teachers, professional development in math/science for teachers,  a social media project with university students, meetings with senior high school students to talk about future plans, more conversational English classes, micro-credit development, and a trip to the Citadelle!

Arriving in Cap-Haitien: Emily's Perspective

Against all odds, we arrived in Cap-Haitien ahead of schedule today.

After meeting at the Toronto airport at 3:30 am this morning, we've had a full day of flights, but miraculously landed at the Cap-Haitien International Airport (which typically receives one airplane per day) before 3 pm!

Although I (Emily Sider, 2nd year Laurier Arts student and daughter of Steve who writes this blog) have been to Haiti before, this was my first trip to Cap-Haitien and arriving to the Stella Maris (our guest house) was a wonderful surprise. I'm writing this blogpost while looking out at a beautiful ocean view below.

Our team gathered on the patio overlooking the water, and we were introduced to Andre (who manages the nutrition centre and microcredit that our business/Enactus team members will be working in) and Henoc (a pastor at a local church here in Cap-Haitien and founder of a school we will be working in). We decided that a much-needed break from a day of early flights was in order, so we walked down the hill from the Stella Maris and had cold drinks at a patio restaurant right on the ocean. Just to have today to rejuvenate and prepare for the week to come - which would not have been the same if we had had flight complications - has been amazing.

Haiti Listening and Learning Trip: Pre-departure

In just a few hours we will be departing from Toronto to Miami and then on to Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Here's a map of where we are heading ... see if you can find Cap-Haitien:

Our team of 20 will be involved with a number of learning experiences including primary and secondary schools, universities, and Haitian NGOs that are working with women and children. There are 10 of us from Laurier on the team and the remainder are from school boards, businesses, other universities, and the Ontario Ministry of Education. It is a great group!

We will be posting reports on this blog every day and we hope that you enjoy following along virtually! You can also follow us on Twitter if you want more real-time updates and pictures: #LaurierHaiti2015.

Social Innovation in Haiti: Key Themes

This past winter, I hosted a panel entitled "Security in a Fragile State: What Can We Learn Through Social Innovation in Haiti?" The panel ended up turning into a "Tweet-a-thon" due to a snow storm that closed the university. We used the #LaurierHaitiSI hashtag to stimulate conversations and track responses. The result was an amazing opportunity to engage a much broader audience than would have come to the university.

It has taken some time but here are the key themes and comments that came up that evening.As you will tell by reading through the comments, the insights were rich and thought-provoking!

Theme	Response
Definition/conceptualization of “social innovation”	-Positive social change -Communities joining together to develop and advance new ideas and technologies to solve social problems -Empowerment through positive, people centered change -Importance of support network in affecting social change – difficult for change to unilaterally happen -Social innovation is key to developing complex solutions for complex problems
Examples of social innovation	-Community response immediately after the earthquake in Haiti – people and communities came together to help rebuild -Women played a critical role in that recovery, transcending traditional gender roles and becoming primary breadwinners – social innovation is then the risk-taking to transcend these roles that society creates for us -Providing school supplies and basic needs for refugee students -Providing supports and resources to support social capital in rural Haiti -When it is about necessity and survival, rules will be broken – survival is the focus
Importance of considering social innovation in Haiti and other fragile contexts	-Again about survival and need – incremental steps and organic developments will arise from need -Where people lack the infrastructure and resources, it is likely that individuals will emerge to create alternative and new systems to fill that need -In order to learn and collaborate and create social connections -It provides a new approach and new solutions -“I think social innovation is the reason why Haiti still exists as a nation” -Bringing the world into the classroom – modeling those social connections -Can’t “offload” solutions to policymakers and governments who aren’t in tune with these systematic/complex issues. Social innovation is about designing new solutions to these problems with those who are affected by them -The traditional means and conduct are inadequate - Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) are not efficient if they exist
Ingredients that support SI in Haiti	-Having a “why”, which becomes the driving force to move in a particular direction for social innovation -Resilience and risk-taking is involved and there is a lot of uncertainty -Provide training and open discussion around sustainable solutions -As teachers, it is our duty to promote social innovation
Connections between SI and security	-SI can be threatening to some -When we talk about security, we need to ask, “For whom?” Ex: Social movements are threatening to individuals who want to maintain the status quo. Who benefits from maintaining the status quo or not pursuing SI? Someone is benefitting from inaction -Security at times gets in the way of SI – fear is an enemy for many who would like to be involved -Social innovation must be developed in sustainable ways if it is to provide security for the oppressed to be liberated – SI can be scary to people in power. -SI takes the action from the hands of the government and put in the hand of the people who can act on it – the challenge becomes guidance – it takes some structure and infrastructure to get SI going
How Laurier community can learn about/support social innovation in Haiti	-Stories and images of Haiti are usually presented through a deficit lens – there is value and importance in getting to know the deeper story -Haiti’s story requires digging deeper than the pictures and stories being shared in the media

Laurier learning trip to Haiti May 2015: The importance of learning about and with

Each May, I co-lead a learning trip to Haiti. I used to call these service-learning trips - and we certainly engage in service - but I want to put an increased focus on learning. We have a number of projects that we will be working on while in Haiti but we emphasize that these projects are really just avenues to learning about Haiti and with our colleagues there.

This year's trip will have four focus areas for our team. Central to these four areas will be a social media and video project that we will be doing for the first time.


1. ESL - our Laurier Bachelor of Education students will be supporting English as a Second Language classes in universities and secondary schools.

2. Micro-credit - a group from Laurier's School of Business and Economics will be meeting with a Haitian NGO that they have been working with to support a micro-credit initiative.

3. Teacher and Leadership Training - some of our participants are involved with teacher education in Ontario and will be engaging partners at schools in continued professional learning, specifically in Science and Mathematics.

4. Special Education - we have supported a special education needs assessment and training in Haiti for the past year and will be continuing our support of that project on this trip.

One of the things I am really excited about is the participation of two people who will serve as our videographers and social media leads for this trip. We are working with Haitian university students to use videos and social media as a way to support inter-cultural learning of Canadian and Haitian students.

We will be in Cap-Haitien (northern Haiti) from May 10-17. Regular posts will be made on this blog and you can also follow along in "real-time" on Twitter:

@drstevesider or @Laurier_haiti
#LaurierHaiti2015

Laurier Master of Education: Thoughts on our final Capstone class

Last night was the final night for our current cohort of students in the Capstone course of our Master of Education. The Capstone course is the culminating course in the M.Ed. and provides an opportunity for students to share evidence of how they have met the M.Ed. program goals. In our final two classes, the course participants have shared their journey of learning over the past three years.

I have sat in awe over the past two weeks as the participants have shared their artifacts and the stories that surround them. I am truly amazed by the reflection, courage, innovation, and deep learning that these participants have demonstrated.


Some participants chose to submit their portfolio of learning through a hard copy format while others chose digital means. The following links provide an opportunity to explore the learning that these M.Ed. participants have experienced:

Sean Jackson

Jenny Loebsack

Kimberley McMillan

Jessica Weber

The illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler