Every Tuesday, Stacey and Ruth host the Slice of Life on their blog, twowritingteachers.wordpress.com. Please feel free to join this community by posting or commenting on any of the linked posts.
Over the last few weeks, I have become increasingly involved in the Choose 2 Matter Community, a project started by
Angela Maiers. Angela is challenging young people to develop projects that solve problems in our world--projects that they can manage that will make the world a better place. Until the middle of June, she is spearheading a contest for young people between the ages of 5-18 to submit quests that they have created to solve problems within their worlds, stemming from her conviction that we all matter.
Angela's TedTalk is extremely powerful and one to watch if you haven't already. It's one of the longer ones--almost twenty minute--but definitely worth listening to or watching.
Her translation of this work for young people can be found on the website
choose2matter.org. While she is challenging hundreds of young people from around the world to submit quests, she has also created a system for young people to help organize the program.
Through social media and connections, she has established teams with adult facilitators for storytelling, creating multi-media projects, using social media, and evaluating quests. I heard myself say yes to being the adult facilitator for the story-telling group and I have already been so impressed with the energy of middle school students from around the country to help get the word out about this project.
I believe in the power of young people and I believe in inspiring them to understand their power. I think that this project has huge potential to motivate young people to act. Here are some ways that you can help:
- spread the word through social media. As more information comes up about choose2matter.org, please help relay the news.
- spread the word to your students and teachers.This project could work really well with some of the opinion writing units that are going on in classrooms. Maybe we could generate energy for submissions of quests.
If you can think of other ways to support this initiative or to become involved, please share them!
Thanks to Angela and her team for inspiring us all with such simple words--you matter!
This is exciting work, Melanie. Thanks for sharing it as a sol. I just started by pinning it to Pinterest. I'll check out the website next.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an amazing project, Melanie! I'll share this with my colleagues tomorrow. Thanks for spreading the word!
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I'll share it out wherever I can, Melanie. It sounds cool. I think it would be terrific at the beginning of next year. We only have a few weeks left. At least the teachers might present to their students for summer too!
ReplyDeleteI get information about this project on FB, but I haven't had the time to explore it much. Thanks for all the links. This is definitely something I'd like to become more involved in. Helping kids make a difference...how great is that!
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