How Can We Enhance the MCDS Experience with Kiva With Design Thinking?

For the past two months the fifth grade has been using design thinking to enhance the MCDS with Kiva. We had one class every week to learn about design thinking and how to apply it to our  project. We interviewed different faculty and staff about how to enhance the MCDS experience. Most faculty and staff either loaned once and hadn’t visited the site since, or only heard about Kiva at a meeting. We also learned that there was a lot of money that had been repaid in our Kiva accounts and we had not re-loaned.  Every group of two or three people had to come up with a pitch for their enhancement ideas. We presented all of our pitches as a fifth grade. Some ideas were to make a Kiva workshop at school where parents can loan and share Kiva with their friends and colleagues. Another idea was to make a Kiva gift card for the graduating 8th graders from their Kiva funds so that they can keep loaning after they graduate. All of our ideas will be taken into consideration by the teachers and they will choose which ones will be pursued.

Posted By Henry S

STUDENT REFLECTIONS ON GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP STUDY

REFLECTING ON THE YEAR

We are making an exception and allowing a teacher post on our student blog, but only to share students' words about what they have learned and how they have changed as a result of the year's study. 

These are just a few excerpts from our final reflection on being a global citizen. Each student wrote a page on it and they were all so amazing:

 To be a responsible global citizen you can’t assume what other people around the world are like and you can’t make stereotypes about their life.  You can’t block out poverty when you are a global citizen, you have to see the big picture and want to help people in need.  To make the world a better place we have to want to help the people in need and we have to dig deep into the lives of these people in poverty and not make assumptions.  We have to understand what these people are going through.  Anna


I think being a responsible global citizen means to use what you have, maybe money or a gift or talent, and use it for good.  I think it means taking those things and helping others with it.  Tess

The thing about Kiva was as we learned others benefitted from us getting smarter.  Amazing, right?  We learned about loaning and fundraising and the people on Kiva helped us with our learning and we helped them with their lives....   Max B


I think about my life a lot different after participating in Kiva.  I think about how lucky I am to have all the necessary items to survive like food and water.  …. Henry

My participation in Kiva changed the way I think about my life because now I know that many people don’t have what I have and don’t have the resources that people in America have.  And that I should be grateful for what I have….to be a responsible global citizen means to not waste your life on drugs or alcohol ….. Elizabeth

Since Kiva is so amazing I plan on using it forever and on.  If I can help people from just a click on a computer than I will.  It is not like I lost that money forever.  Kiva works on and on and once you put out a loan you don’t want to stop…. Kiva will never stop working…  Julianna


Being a responsible global citizen means to be just, fair and generous. It also means to be nicer to the environment to make the world a better place. Max P


I saw how much people were in need of something that they couldn’t get and that there are some of those people a few miles away from here that are poor and in need of a loan. Also that there are people that don’t even have good drinking water and I used to think that drinking water was easy to get and that everyone had it. George


In the beginning of the year I just thought that it was hard to get water in places like Africa, but now I know it isn’t just hard it is dangerous because the water is sometimes infected because someone used it as a bathroom. Harrison


The whole class benefitted form the study because not they also know that other people don’t get the chances that they have. “Talent is universal. Opportunity is not.”  Amelia
  

GREAT DISCUSSION

HERO STUDY

One of our big assignments this year was our hero study where we studied people who we thought made a difference. For mine I studied Thomas Edison.  Others studied Wangari Maathai, Nelson Mandela, Susan B. Anthony, John Muir, Steve Jobs, etc... We found out as much as I could about our subjects and wrote down the facts on notecards. After finding as many facts as we could, we put them into an outline. When my outline was finished I reviewed it and looked for the big ideas that made Edison so interesting to study. I put all the main ideas together to create my Final Biography. This whole process took about two months. Our Hero Study concluded with The Great Discussion. We generated ideas in response to the question: What is the best way to make the world thrive? We got into groups according to the kinds of work our biographical person did and took their perspective on what the best way was to help the world thrive. For example, as Thomas Edison I was part of the technology and innovation group.  But there were others in conflict resolution, environmental sustainability, and human rights also. We then wrote a little bit about our biographical person from our person's point of view. For example, Hello, my name is Thomas Edison I made... you get the idea. We wrote these for our Great Discussion to introduce ourselves.

On the day of The Great Discussion everyone in our class came dressed up in a way that represented their hero. I wore a suit jacket, dress pants, and a bowtie, all of which I wore to my aunt's wedding the year before. We sat down in our groups and the discussion began.

Rachel Cook and Her Microlending Film Project

THE MICROLENDING FILM

A woman named Rachel Cook came to talk to us about a movie she made about micro-finance. In her film she told the stories of some of the people that were helped by Kiva.  They were very inspiring stories. She made me realize even more about how important it is to loan to people around the world because they can do so much with the money. The film also talked about what women do for their families if they get the money. Women are more likely to spend their money to help their families.  It was also very cool because she went around the world to these amazing people and talked to them. One of the women Rachel interviewed was named Tabogo and she grew up in a poor slum in Kenya. She got a loan and started a small very successful small store there. People can do great things for their community if they get the chance. To find out more about loaning go to http://www.kiva.org.

By Anna W.

Emy Gelb-Free the Children

The other day Emy Gelb came to visit our school. She is a former MCDS student who now works for FREE THE CHILDREN.  Emy loves to travel. She flew to Guatemala for the first time without speaking Spanish after she graduated from high school. When she got on a bus to go to the city, the bus looked like a school bus, except it was painted crazy colors and it had shag carpet and disco balls. In the middle of the drive the bus driver pulled over and let a woman on the bus.  She stood right next to Emy. Everything was normal about her except that she was holding a chicken…on a bus. Emy started thinking about how the bus driver didn’t care about safety because he was running red lights. She had never been so frightened or excited in her life.

While she was there, Emy learned about an American woman who sold all her belongings and took the money to move back to Guatemala and make a school.  Emy found that school and worked there for three months. Imagine seeing 40 football fields of trash and seeing kids who should be in school, and grandmothers climbing all over it looking for food, clothing or anything of value. That was what the Guatemalan dump looked like. This dump was right next to the school.  Emy was working with a student named Maria, and Emy asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. Maria said that she wanted to be a teacher so that she could teach her grandma how to read. 

Emy also visited Ecuador with students from Toronto, Canada. They helped a school kitchen get clean water for nutrition. Everyone in the community pitched in to dig a ditch to move the clean water.  Emy saw little old ladies who would dig and dig and helped a lot.  In Ecuador many men think they are better than woman and that woman are their property. In one town Emy visited, she was impressed by women who made beautiful textiles from sheep’s  wool. These women formed groups and worked so that the men could think of them as something more, something better.

One of the things that they say at Free the Children is PASSION+ISSUE=CHANGE. It means that when you put passion into an issue it makes a change.

Emy also gave us three challenges:

1.     Do your research. (Become a expert)

2.     Get creative!

3.    Do Something!

By Lila F.

MATT FLANNERY SPEAKS TO THE FIFTH GRADE

Kiva co-founder, Matt Flannery, came to our school recently and he talked to us about how he started Kiva, what made him start it, what challenges he faced, and how it has grown. One of the pictures he showed us was of a Maasai warrior with a cell phone. He said that the cell phone had technology where you could text amounts of money to someone else. Matt said that this made money exchanging so much easier for microfinance organizations and other people. I wish we had that kind of technology. One of his challenges were that people thought it would never work. They wondered who in the world would lend money to a poor person with a chance of not getting it back or something? Matt Flannery proved them wrong. Kiva’s repayment rate as of 4/5/12 is 98.91%. So only 1% don’t pay back their loans. That’s a pretty high repayment rate. I wonder how much the cell phones cost?

BY MAX P.

Robin Donohoe came with Matt Flannery to speak to fifth graders about how Kiva got started.  She works for a non-profit organization called Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.  They helped provided the start-up money and business advice to Matt Flannery and his partner when they started Kiva.  Draper Richards and Kaplan Foundation gives money to businesses that they believe will make a change in the world. I think that this is a great organization because it gives businesses the chance to take off and actually help the world and people in it. They have helped ideas like:

Girls For A Change

Living Goods

Room to Read

They are great non-profit organizations. All these organizations help to give people a good push up towards a better future. Robin’s Foundation is a special organization that helps the world thrive!

By Lizzy C-C

CHILDREN'S BILL OF RIGHTS

Children’s Bill of Rights

The Children’s Bill of Rights focuses on the rights of children. It is like the U.S. Bill of Rights, except it has really different rules. In 1989, the United Nations decided that children should have a Children’s Bill of Rights.  Our class made our own Bill of Rights. We added stuff like:

·       no child abuse

·       all children should have freedom of speech

·       children should be treated equally

·       all children should have the right of medical attention

·       no children can be taken away from their parents at birth

·       children should have shelter

·       children should have clean water, and food

·       children’s opinions should be listened to

Then we saw the real Children’s Bill of Rights and compared it to ours. We did pretty well. We got about half of the ones that we wrote down right! Here is the link to the real Children’s Bill of Rights:  http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/child.asp.

By Caroline M.

7 Billion

Our class watched a video made by National Geographic about our population hitting 7 billion. These are some of the things I learned.

7 billion people

•It would take 200 years to count to 7 billion out loud.
•7 billion steps would take you around the globe 133 times.
•In 1800 the world’s population was only 1 billion.
•In 1930 the world’s population was 2 billion.
•In 1960 the population was 3 billion.
•In 1974 the population was 4 billion.
•In 1987 the population was 5 billion.
•In 1999 the population was 6 billion.
• Now in 2011 the population is 7 billion.
•In 2045 the population could be 9 billion.
•Every second 5 people are born and 2 people die.
•In one minute our population has increased by 161 people.
•In 2010 the average lifespan was 69 years old.
•In 1960 the average person only lived to be 53 years old.
•For the first time ever in 2008 more of us lived in cities than rural areas.
•A Mega-city has a population of over 10 million. In 1975 there were 3 mega-cities; Mexico City, Tokyo, and New York City.
•Right now there are 21 mega-cities.
•By 2050 70% of us will live in urban areas.
•But we don’t take up as much space as you think, we could all fit shoulder to shoulder in the city of Los Angeles.
•So it’s not space we need, it’s balance.
• 5% of us consume 23% of the world’s energy.
•13% of us don’t have clean drinking water.
•38% of us lack adequate sanitation.
•7 billion people speaking more than 7,000 languages.
•7 billion people living in 195 countries.

by Max B.

Loaning to KIVA

The video above shows what happens when 620,000 lenders fund 615,000 entrepreneurs, students, and other microfinance borrowers around the world.

ROOM 22 JOINED THE KIVA MOVEMENT

This month we raised money to give to Kiva. Kiva is an organization that gives loans out to people all over the world. Each person in the class made a $25 loan. Then we chose to whom we wanted to give the money to. We had a whole class period when people loaned to other people all over the world. Some people loaned to people in Tajikistan and other people loaned to Peru, Kenya and Panama, etc... We all filled out sheets about where the person was from and about why the person needed the loan. Making Kiva loans has inspired me and other people in our class to loan to Kiva more often.

By Julianna

Kiva Fundraising

Kiva fundraising was a real rush. People chose different things. For instance, Julianna and I did a bake and jewelry sale. Other people did things like cooking dinner for people, or organizing book sales. We had to raise a minimum of $25. It was very fun and exiting when you got your first customer (or any customer).

The fundraising was fun but there were also some challenges like trying to make the people want to buy your product. It turns out that you have to, as they say, “sell it”. You have to say things like “cookies, brownies, lemonade, all homemade, come and get them fresh…while they’re still here!” It was hard for some people because of shyness. To help the people understand more about Kiva we printed pages from the website but most of the people already knew about Kiva!

All in all, it was fun and hard but what really felt good was the whole idea that we were helping souls get back on their feet so they could pursue their goals or develop their talents.  It felt great to make a loan.

By Elizabeth

Mac Parish

Mac presenting to us about Kiva

In Fifth Grade we got to raise money for Kiva and loan it to a person who either needs it for personal needs or is starting a business. Kiva is a micro-finance organization that puts entrepreneurs on their website, and people who have a credit card and/or PayPal account and a computer can donate to them. So to learn about that, a former student of our teacher came in to talk to us about Kiva where he works. His name is Mac Parish and he lives in Kenya. His job is the Field Support Specialist for Anglophone Africa, more specifically, to help build sustainable relationships with Kiva borrowers. So that’s the background info about Mac, but here’s the info about the presentation and what we learned from it.  

Mac taught us that when you loan on Kiva, it works like this:
1. Kiva partners with a MFI (Microfinance Institution or Field Partners)
2. Field partners upload the loan and stories onto Kiva’s website
3. Lenders browse through people to lend to, then they lend
4. Kiva disburses the lenders money to the borrower
5. The entrepreneurs or borrowers repay the loan
6. Kiva gives the repayments to lenders

To show us how to loan on Kiva, Mac decided he should loan some money to a person of the grade’s choice. Originally, what happened was we were about to loan to a person who needed some money for... pesticides! At MCDS we are very organic so Mac (and our grade) made an executive decision to not loan to that person. We ended up loaning to a person who looked nice so she was our solution. It was that simple. Now that you know how Kiva works, you should try it for yourselves. Just 25 dollars can make all the difference.

Posted By Henry S

Non-profit Banking and The Five Cs of Credit

Non-profit Banking and The Five Cs of Credit

On Friday, the 9^th of December, Kat Taylor came to speak to our 5^th grade class. She is a former parent at our school who co-founded One PacificCoast Bank with her husband, Tom Steyer. It is a non-profit bank in Oakland with the goal of providing helpful fair banking services to less fortunate communities.  She spoke to us why it is important to give loans to people who would normally not be able to get them.

She also taught us the 5 C’s of Credit (the elements a borrower should have to receive credit)

1.      Capacity (the ability to pay the loan back)
2.      Capital (available money)
3.      Collateral (valuable things the bank can own until the money is paid back)
4.      Conditions (of the borrower and the environment the borrower lives in)
5.      Character (the quality of the person). Middle and high-income people are lucky because banks are kinder to them.

There is also a sixth C which she added after the suggestion of an MCDS fifth grader a few years ago: Community (it is important to have a supportive community)

One PacificCoast Bank treats everyone the same, no matter their income. 

By Ben Buder

Pennies A Day: A film about Muhammad Yunus

We watched a video called Pennies A Day about the Grameen bank started by Muhammad Yunus. Before the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh was a country in great poverty. Nobody was making money. Banks did not want to loan to poor people in Bangladesh because they did not think they would pay it back. Then Muhammad Yunus came up with the idea that he would start a bank where they would lend out money to poor rural people around Bangladesh. The business of the Grameen Bank is micro-credit which involves giving small loans to poor people so they have the opportunity to create small businesses. Loans are made for livestock, crafts and agriculture. Ninety-six percent of the loans are given to women because woman with the loans are cautious with the money and spend it first on their children. Each week the people who receive the loans gather in a large circle to make their payments.  The Grameen bank operates in almost every village in Bangladesh. The pay back rate is 99%. Now Bangladesh has roads and there are lots of small businesses.


By Anna Weisel

An ingredient I would add is confidence.

Recipe for a Good Life

Recipes for a Good Life

In school we are working on recipes to make a good life. It is just like a food recipe but instead of ingredients like sugar or butter we use things like family that make a good life. Kyle showed us her grandmother’s recipes that were worn and in little old containers. She passed them around so everyone could take a look at them. Some of them were hand written in cursive and some were typed on a typewriter. We brainstormed verbs that had to with cooking.  Some of them were mix, stir, sprinkle, and chop.  We also brainstormed measurement words like cups and pinches.  Then we worked on computers to make an ingredients list and then added directions.

What would you include in a recipe for a good life?

Posted by Alise P.

Where Children Sleep

In our class we’ve been comparing how different parts of the world live. We’ve looked at what possessions people have and looked at what people eat in a week. Now, we are looking at how children around the world sleep. First, we made a list of ten or more things a stranger would see if they walked into our bedrooms and saw all of our stuff. Then, we saw pictures of children around the world from a book by James Mollison's called Where Children Sleep with pictures of bedrooms. It was sad to see how some of the kids only had one room houses, or lived outside. There was one kid in Rome who slept on a mattress outside. I couldn’t imagine sleeping outside. There were only three kids that I was able to relate to. I was shocked to find that out.

Posted by Max P.

Our Vision for The Year on Animoto

We got the idea for our Animoto on Twitter, from a teacher in Madison, WI, Pernille Ripp. Mrs. Ripp used Animoto to make a class mission, so we thought we would use her idea and make a Room 22 Vision for the Year. This Animoto was also an adventure. It was completely kid made. This first thing that happened was that the song called Good Life by OneRepublic was a little inappropriate for school so one of the kids in our class' dad edited the song on a software program called Audacity and soon after that word was no longer part of the Animoto video. When the Animoto was completely cleaned up we watched it and are class dignity was restored! That's how we made our Animoto.


Post by Henry S

Quality of Life

We studied “Quality of Life” by talking about “What qualities would you need to have a quality life?” My top 5 qualities are:

• Health

• Family

• Education

• Community

• Confidence

My parent’s top 3 qualities are:

• Health 

• Happiness

• Gratefulness

I think people need health because if someone doesn’t have health someone could get a disease, and maybe die. All people need health. I chose family because most of the time family gives you love and you can be happy. It would be great if every one had family/love but not every one needs it.  Good education can get you in to a good high school, and a good high school can get you in to a good college, and that can help you get into a good job. Jobs get you money and with money you can pay for the things you need.  Education is very important. I chose community because people around you can help you and help you get the things that you need. I don’t think every one needs it but it’s good to have it and some people’s family is their community. 

My parent’s thought that being grateful is important because when you are grateful you can appreciate all the things in life. And they thought that happiness is important because when you are happy you can enjoy life. And if you are healthy you feel great.

This is what our class thought compared to our parents:

We all agree on friends, love/family, health, food and freedom. It was a surprise that the parents didn’t say education, because it can help you get a good job and that helps you get money.

What do you think makes a quality life?

By Amelia L

The Danger of A Single Story

                          

TEDTALK: The Danger of a Single Story 

Our teacher showed us a TED talk called "The Danger of a Single Story".  I would recommend this video because it’s just one of those videos that you want to continue to watch.  Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, has a very interesting story.  She explains that there is not one story about any place.  There are multiple stories.

Chimamanda  grow up in Nigeria, Africa. When she was eight she got a new house-boy named Fide. All her mom told her about him was that he was poor. One day Chimamanda visited his village. When she got there Fide’s brother showed her a basket he had woven. It had never occurred to her that Fide's family could actually make something because all she had known about him was that he was poor.

Chimamanda learned how to read when she was four. She was also an early writer and started writing at age seven.  In all her stories the characters had blue eyes and blonde hair, just like in the British books. They also ate apples and talked about how nice the weather was when the sun was out. But, in Nigeria they ate mangos and the sun was always out.

When she moved to the U.S. for college her roommate asked “Where’d you learn how to speak English so well?” Chimamanda said that English is the official language of Nigeria. Then the roommate asked “Can you play some of your tribal music?” Chimamanda played Mariah Carey. Her roommate also assumed that she couldn’t use a stove. 

Chimamanda was reading a book by John Locke and it said that Africans are beasts with no houses.  Later a professor told her her stories were not authentically African because there was not enough suffering. Chimamanda had a very good childhood with a roof over her head and food on the table.

If we let only one story define Africa, then we will only think of it in one way and not realize that there are all kinds of people in different situations in Africa. I still have a lot of questions but along the way I’ll find the answers!

Posted by Lila F

The Five Ps of Poverty

Cate Biggs, the editor of the World Savvy Monitor and Writing for Global Engagement, came to speak to us about the causes of poverty.  Her talk was helpful and informative. We learned about the Five P’s of poverty.

There are 6 billion people in the world. One billion of that have what they need. Four billion of that have hope that they can get what they need. And the rest live in poverty and they get a dollar a day for the very hard work that they do.

Poor people in poor countries face huge challenges. Food is hard to get, they have to take six hours out of their day do get water and the water is sometimes not clean. No electricity, no roads so it’s hard to get from place to place, education is hard to get, there are a lot of diseases, not a lot of healthcare, and unfair rules of law, so someone can steal something and it won’t even mater.

The first P of poverty is PLACE. You don’t want to be in a country with the climate being very hot because then you have a scarce amount of water. Also you don’t want to be next to a poor country. The USA has a good climate, not a lot of diseases, and great coastlines. Chad is poor because it is small, landlocked, and has bad climate.

The second P is PAST.  A country's past matters because if your country had slaves that were sent to the USA then they took advantage of them.

The third P is PEOPLE. Overpopulation matters because if you have too many people and not enough space and not enough resources then you will have a country in poverty and you hard time controlling diseases. The USA normally has two babies per woman. In Chad it’s normally five babies per woman. 99% of people can read in the USA but only 25% of people can read in Chad. 

The fourth P in poverty is POLITICS. Nearly all voters in the USA can read. But, less then 25% of voters can read in Chad! Also the US government is all connected. But, in Chad the government spreads out.

The last P in poverty is PEACE. There are a lot of wars in the countries in poverty. For example, in Chad, after a war they are more likely to start up another. Chad is surrounded with war and bad things. Poverty is a cycle. The P’s of poverty keep the countries in poverty. India and China jumped out of poverty.  The USA is helping a lot with the countries in poverty by giving money. The USA has given of one trillion dollars to the countries in poverty. What you can do is, understand, act, and educate.
  

Post written by Elizabeth C