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=Welcome to Our Global Society!=

General Overview
The United States is a nation of diverse cultural backgrounds. As an adult, you will be living in a global society, communicating with and competing for jobs with people from around the world. Through coursework, discussions, projects and rich multi-cultural opportunities in our community you will experience and appreciate your own as well as each other’s cultural background. You will leave this classroom with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for diversity.

Throughout the quarter you and I will be answering four very simple, but also very complex questions. You will find the questions listed to the left as a link to new pages. The depth that we answer these questions depends on the depth that you attempt to analyze yourself and the world around you. Many of these topics are going to make us uncomfortable, but in the end it will all be worth it and you will leave with a deeper understanding of who you are and how you see the world around you. It is my hope that this understanding will then cause you to be better equipped to become a responsible adult and a leader in society.

To our visitors:
Welcome to our classroom wiki! We are using this wiki as an online work space for our projects, a discussion board outside of class, and as a repository for our personal blogs. Please feel free to look at all our information, post comments on our wiki pages in the discussion board and email any questions you may have to our teacher at jacobs.carrie@gmail.com. Also, please follow the links to our blogs and join in on our discussions.

Class Guidelines
We will work together on the 2nd day of school to develop our guidelines as a group and post them in this section. You will be required to sign our list of rules to show you agree with the guidelines and keep your signed copy in your portfolio.

To prepare for this discussion ahead of time, think about:
 * what you need from the group to feel safe to speak freely?
 * your definition of respect;
 * how do you show respect?
 * how do you want people to show that they respect you?
 * how do we show respect to visitors?
 * how do we show respect in our field trips?

Discussion
In this class we will use a circle format to conduct discussions. These circles give all students the chance to talk & force us to take the time to listen to others instead of focusing on what we want to say next. When we are in circle we will use a talking piece to slow down the conversation. This talking piece is chosen from the center and will always be passed to the left. We will begin each circle assembling the centerpiece to remind us of the circle guidelines & our group rules. I will provide two pieces for the centerpiece, a ying yang candle & an Kenyan symbol for unity. You are welcome to bring in any items you feel/think would make a great addition to our centerpiece. We will start the process by reminding ourselves of the circle guidelines found below. Remember that the key to a circle is to focus on listening to the speaker and not thinking about what you want to say next. You can take as much time as you need to think when you receive the talking piece.

Circle Guidelines

 * respect the talking piece
 * speak from your heart
 * speak with respect
 * listen with respect
 * remain in the circle
 * honor confidentiality
 * you may pass

As we get better at the circle process we will begin to identify the type of circle we are conducting.

These types are classified by the four directions of the Earth: //North//-creating solutions, sharing wisdom and follow-up //South//-telling our stories //East//-building trust and getting to know each other //West//-identifying issues and concerns, social compact

=Shall we begin our journey?=

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