Action to Empathy:Creating Social Entrepreneurs

Lynn MittlerMICDS, St. Louis, MO

https://lynnmittler.wikispaces.com

These are the images our students see everyday

Reality

• Our students were in grade school (or younger) when 9/11 occurred.

• They have lived over half of their lives with their country embroiled in conflict on at least two fronts.

• They have not known a world without a terrorism threat.

• They have always had to take their shoes off at the airport.

Reality

• Estimated 4 billion people globally who live on less that $2.50 a day.

Reality

• “Africa’s real per capita income today is lower than in the 1970s, leaving many African countries at least as poor as they were forty years ago.”

• “The 2007 United Nations Human Development Report forecasts that sub-Saharan Africa will account for almost one third of the world poverty in 2015, up from one fifth in 1990.”

Reality

• “Giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people.”

• “When relief does not transition to development in a timely way, compassion becomes toxic.”

“The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.”

The Danger of a Single Story

Seven Survival Skills

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving• Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by

Influence• Agility and Adaptability• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism• Effective Oral and Written Communication• Assessing and Analyzing Information• Curiosity and Imagination

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Need for Empathy

Today’s obsession with computer technology and video gaming appears to be stunting frontal lobe development in many teenagers, impairing their social and reasoning abilities.

Spending hours playing video games or working at a computer does little to bolster our empathetic skills. Neuroimaging studies have indentified the specific brain circuitry that controls empathy…most of us can strengthen our empathetic neural pathways and improve our skills through off-line training.

Our Mission Statement

More than ever our nation needs responsible men and women who can meet the challenges of this world with confidence and embrace all its people with compassion. The next generation must include those who think critically and resolve to stand for what is good and right.

Our School cherishes academic rigor, encourages and praises meaningful individual achievement, and fosters virtue. Our independent education prepares young people for higher learning and for lives of purpose and service.

What is possible

First Steps

www.take2videos.org

Pre & Post Survey Results

Question Pre Post

Dominant Religion of Sudan

62% 75%

Location of Darfur 38% 75%

What Caused the Conflict(only religion vs. nuanced response)

75%* 75%

Discuss International Issues with Friends or Family

4.9 5.67

Students have the power to make a difference in the world

7.25 8.25

Definition of a Global Citizen (action)

19% 50%

A New Project is Born

Global Action ProjectDriving Question

How can individuals effect sustainable Change in the world?

Starting Point

Blogging (Vlogging) along the way

• Self-reflection• Text analysis• Examining interests• Writing personal mission statements• Searching for passion

Core Texts

Moving Forward

Evaluate Current Efforts to Improve the World

• Look at individuals who are: why are they successful?• Look at failures: Dead Aid, Toxic Charity, Three Cups

of Tea• Project: research your favorite charity. How effective

are they?

Charity Navigator

Next Steps

• What are the biggest problems facing the world? Who gets attention and why?

• What steps need to be taken to solve these problems?

Framing: Systems Thinking• Systems thinking is a discipline for

seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots.”

• Systems thinking is the antidote to this sense of helplessness that many feel as we enter the “age of interdependence.” Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing the “structures” that underlie complex situations…

Framing: What is a Social Entrepreneur?

• Ashoka began in the fashion of a venture capital firm, seeking high yields from modest, well-targeted investments. However, the returns it seeks are not in profits, but in advances in education, environmental protection, rural development, poverty alleviation, human rights, healthcare, care for the disabled, care for children at risk, and other fields.

Innovation• There are essentially two very different

kinds of innovation in both the for-profit and nonprofit arenas: incremental and disruptive. Incremental innovation is about significantly improving existing products, processes, or services. Disruptive or transformative innovation, on the other hand, is about creating a new or fundamentally different product or service that disrupts existing markets and displaces formerly dominant technologies.

• Play, Passion, Purpose

Innovation

• “If we are serious about preparing students to be innovators, we have some hard work ahead. Getting students ready to tackle tomorrow’s challenges means helping them develop a new set of skills and fresh ways of thinking that they won’t acquire through textbook-driven instruction. They need opportunities to practice these new skills on right-sized projects, with supports in place to scaffold learning. They need to persist and learn from setbacks.”

Innovation

Design Thinking

Design Thinking

Design Thinking

Framing: Design Thinking

Design Thinking

Build to think and launch to learn.

The Final Project

The Final Project

• Now take all of this information and design an enterprise that will effect change?

• What problem will you address?• How will it be sustainable?• What problems do you anticipate?• How will you sell others on your idea? Both

those who will support you to those who may need you?

Steps along the way• Design your own project: what will you read,

how will you research, how will you tell your story?

• Clear calendar of deadlines• Write a business plan• Create a documentary • TED Talk-like presentation explaining their

choice• Practice presenting to a panel who will ask you

questions

Previous Preparation

• Summer Reading assessment• Multiple presentation with self-reflection• Question and Answer sessions with Dead Aid

and Toxic Charity• Design Thinking: School-based issue, Half the

Sky• Mission statement writing• Multiple films, including a documentary

Previous Preparation

Skills

• Research skills: Library data bases and noodlebib

Noodlebib

Noodlebib

Storytelling: A Lost Generation

Podcasts: Garageband

Final Cut Pro

The Final Product

Final Product

• Documentary • Presentation, including a documentary, given

in front of “real” people• Business plan submitted• Research provided to support their position

Final Product

Accounting for the Seven Survival Skills

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving• Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by

Influence• Agility and Adaptability• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism• Effective Oral and Written Communication• Assessing and Analyzing Information• Curiosity and Imagination

Implementation and Scale

• Smaller elements can be incorporated into courses.

• Mission-driven nature of course can influence scale.