Today was the first day of running LTI with the Brazilian PESSOA students we've met. First off, a little description of where these sessions take place: the organization that is sponsoring us rented a little house/spa/building near a main square for the program that we planned for them. It's a beautiful little room with hardwood floor and three walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto a little garden. With a little projector and a screen and plenty of chairs to go around, it was basically the perfect room for all of our activities.
The way that the LTI Brazil team planned the curriculum for the next two weeks is as follows: 3 hours of LTI curriculum (similar to the 4-hour long sessions in the spring) and then 2 hours of exec-planning time, during which the LTI staff would work in small groups to discuss how the chapter would exist in Brazil. So today, I started off with a brief (that didn't end up being brief due to translations via Susan) introduction of LTI.
Next, we started doing LTI activities with the members of PESSOA. After a quick run-through of initial introductions, Tina led Big Wind Blows (always a favorite icebreaker). Everybody seemed to really enjoy getting to run around and playing jokes on each other, and it was a great start to our first session with them. Next, we did a quick survey of their ideas of leadership and where they're coming from in terms of experience with leadership. Afterwards, we ran Anatomy of a Leader, where the students drew outlines of bodies and drew on body parts that were also metaphors for the qualities a leader should have. People came up with interesting ideas that I had never seen before, things like an engagement ring to show commitment and a ring of fat around the belly as an energy reserve. Then, a quick break to recoup from everything and back to work! We ran Human Knot, where people get their arms all tangled up and have to find a way to become one continuous loop without letting go of any hands - everybody had fun yelling and calling out directions every which way. That led nicely into Helium Hula Hoop, where a group of people had to lower a hula hoop using only their fingers (but always keeping their fingers on the hula hoop) - reason behind the naming being that the hula hoop always rises due to overcompensation. And since self-reflection is such a big part of the LTI philosophy, we ended the LTI curriculum portion with Letters to Future Selves. A quick break of Splat livened things up (many many exciting Splat-offs) before starting the executive structure portion of the presentation. I did another short powerpoint speech and then we broke up into small groups of 3-4 to talk about the PESSOA students' motivation to create an LTI chapter and promote leadership. Then, a little group brainstorm on their LTI vision ended the day and that was the end of the first session!
A couple of students took us to a fruit smoothie bar where Susan ordered a couple of drinks and the acai berry smoothie that so many of the students had been recommending for us to try. I think everybody loved this berry-icee-concoction (all except Susan, apparently), and it was a nice and relaxing way to end the day. A quick debrief with the team wrapped up our work for the day, and then it was off back to our host families for dinner and nighttime activities.
Pictures are now up on Facebook, and soon coming to a Picasa web album! And even more excitement tomorrow. Keep in touch!
hahaha everything is running awesome! We're so excited for having you here with us! But I miss our paper budies, haven't seen them on the walls today =/
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