Tools for School/Youth – Partner

WELCOME TO THE TABLE

At the Table Colorado (ATTC) is an annual gathering designed to take people places – to offices, schools, libraries, restaurants, museums and other spaces where they meet others, share ideas and explore ways to improve our neighborhoods, communities and state. The results are empowering conversations, exciting new relationships and genuine pathways toward collaborative action – outcomes that connect our communities, making them more resilient and resourceful.

Please view our ATTC Toolkit for resources available.

About At the Table Colorado

Your Voice Matters Colorado. Through At the Table Colorado, your students will join others throughout Colorado who are coming together to have conversations about what matters to us. By learning from and with each other, we have the power to impact both neighborhoods and lives.

Why Participate in At the Table Colorado?

At the Table Colorado is an excellent learning opportunity — a great way to model civic responsibility, learn about other perspectives and explore ways to become more engaged in your community. At the Table Colorado can help your students:

  • Deepen their knowledge and understanding of local issues.
  • Explore ways to make a difference in their community or for the causes they care about.
  • Enhance their sense of connection and commitment to their communities, schools and peers.
  • Have fun and learn together.
What You Will Find in this Guide

Instructions on how to organize an At the Table Colorado conversation:

  • Prep lesson to do with your students prior to your At the Table Colorado conversation.
  • A facilitation guide and discussion prompts for the At the Table Colorado conversation.
  • Follow up lesson to do with your students after your At the Table Colorado conversation.
  • School Safety Conversation Starters.
How to Use this Guide

We have provided a list of suggested ways to engage in At the Table Colorado. However, do not feel constricted by these options, as they are only suggestions. We encourage you to customize your At the Table Colorado experience to best suit the individual needs of your school/community. The goal is for young people to gather and discuss ideas to improve their schools, communities and Colorado, empowering them to create the change they wish to see take place.

There is a lot of information on this page. The links below can be used to move to each section:

ATTC Toolkit

At the Table Colorado Conversation Menu of Options

Youth Conversation Lesson

Facilitator Guidelines

Follow-up After At the Table Conversation: Post-Lesson Reflection

Head, Heart and Feet

School Safety Conversation Starters

Want More?

ATTC TOOLKIT

The ATTC Toolkit has resources to enrich your Table experience and like any other toolkit, it has some things you will use and others you won’t; take what works for you and leave the rest. We have created templates of posters, invitations, placemats for taking notes, and much more. Browse our tools for Hosts, Guests, School/Youth or download and share our one-page Fact Sheet.

In addition to this toolkit, there will be online training webinars and Facebook live discussions. As a registered Host/Guest you will receive email updates as plans develop. We will also post the information on our website: atthetablecolorado.org and our social media as well.

Tools for Hosts | Tools for Guests | Tools for Families | Tools for School/Youth | Templates | ATTC Fact Sheet

AT THE TABLE COLORADO CONVERSATION MENU OF OPTIONS

There is no one way to host an At the Table Colorado conversation, but we have compiled some ideas to help you get started. You should not feel limited by the choices provided. Consider the following:

  • Host an At the Table Colorado conversation within your class.
  • Partner with another teacher(s) at your school to host At the Table Colorado conversations across classrooms/grade levels.
  • Invite community members (parents, local business people, clergy, community-based organizations, etc.) to join your students for an At the Table Colorado conversation.
  • Organize some after school clubs to participate in an At the Table Colorado conversation together (e.g., get the basketball team talking with the drama club).
  • Host a school-wide At the Table Colorado conversation in the lunchroom.
  • Partner with another school to host an At the Table Colorado conversation in the lunchroom.
After Your At the Table Colorado Conversation

At the Table Colorado is about giving everyone who cares about their community a voice and an opportunity to share their ideas — big and small. For At the Table Colorado to have the greatest impact it is vital that you share your feedback with us. We want to continue the forward momentum and build on the collaborations the conversations have generated, so we have a brief survey, we would like you and your group to complete before you leave the Table.

If you registered your Table with ATTC you received a digital link and printable hard copy of the survey via email before your Table conversation. If you did not register, please do so now and you can download a printable version of the survey from the At the Table Colorado website.

If you use the printed surveys, please return as soon as possible to:

At the Table Colorado
c/o Trailhead Institute
1385 S Colorado Blvd, #A622
Denver, CO 80222

Thank you for coming to the table – we’re excited to have you as part of this important conversation, because…Your Voice Matters Colorado!

YOUTH CONVERSATION LESSON

Overview The purpose of this lesson is to facilitate a group discussion where students generate ideas for improving their communities and Colorado.

Objectives
  • Reflect on positive work occurring in communities
  • Identify work that still needs to be done
  • Discuss ways in which youth can make a difference
  • Collaborate with peers in a civil discourse
Materials
  • Facilitation Guidelines
  • Guiding Questions
  • Note-taking Placemat
Templates
Preparation

Have students sit at tables that seat 8-10 people. Depending on the composition of your group, we recommend mixing up ages, grade levels, and schools (if applicable). In other words, to the greatest extent possible, try to get youth talking with other youth they don’t normally get a chance to talk with. We also recommend trying to have at least one adult at each table, but DO NOT require that the adult act as the facilitator. Instead, the adult can act as a participant at the table with a student facilitator. You can prep students to facilitate discussions prior to the At the Table Colorado event. Use the facilitator guide and prompts provided here to help prepare students.

Bell-Ringer: Introductions

Welcome everyone and explain that they will be participating in an exciting event where people from across Colorado are meeting during September to discuss how we can create a more unified community and imagine the future of the Colorado through a program called At the Table Colorado. Explain that we hope conversations will generate new ideas, inspire bold solutions and cultivate relationships and collaborations that help to build and maintain strong, vibrant, safe and dynamic neighborhoods and communities.

BEFORE: Assigning Roles

Have each group assign a note-taker, a facilitator and a time-keeper.

DURING: At the Table Colorado Conversations

Using the conversation prompts, the facilitators should guide a conversation while the note-taker uses the template to capture the main ideas of the discussion and the time-keepers monitor the clock.

AFTER: Next Steps
  • Allow enough time for groups to begin to think about and discuss actions that they could take to address some of the issues they raised in their discussion.
  • Each student presenter (one per group) shares the main ideas from his or her group discussion.
  • Ask students to join the At the Table Colorado discussion online using the hashtag #AtTheTableColorado and #ATTCYouthVoices on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If your school has a policy against using social media during school hours, encourage your students to join the conversation at home.

FACILITATOR GUIDELINES

  • Create a friendly and welcoming environment
  • Keep the group focused and on task
  • Make sure everyone is participating and has time to talk
  • Make sure no single student is dominating the conversation
  • Identify one note-taker at each table
Facilitator Prompts

Use the prompts below to spark conversation. You need not use all the prompts nor go in any specific order. Allow the conversation to flow organically and work to get everyone participating.

  • After welcoming everyone, go around the table and have participants introduce themselves and share a personal experience about their community.
  • Describe a strong, well-functioning school, community or state. What are the qualities and characteristics? What makes it strong?
  • What is the most important issue facing our community?
  • What can we each do to make our school, community or state better?
  • Let’s choose an issue affecting our community and talk more specifically about how we’d address it – with unlimited resources and then, as a challenge, if we only had $100 and one day to create change.
  • Which idea discussed at your At the Table Colorado conversation do you think has the most potential to bring about change in your community?
Note-Taker
  • Capture the main ideas suggested by members of your group.
  • Complete the note-taking sheet on the Placemat Template.
Timekeeper
  • Monitor the clock.
  • Keep the group focused on task.
  • Be a participating member of the group.
Presenter
  • Have your group select the main ideas to share with the class.
  • When presenting, be sure to state the issue your group focused on first, followed by the solution(s) your group identified.
  • Be a participating member of the group.
Share Your Notes, Ideas or Commitments

Starting September 2018, you can share your discussion notes, ideas or commitments in the following ways:

  • Email your notes, ideas or commitments to: ideas@atthetablecolorado.org.
  • Share your notes, ideas or commitments on social media using #AtTheTableColorado and #ATTCYouthVoices.

FOLLOW-UP AFTER AT THE TABLE CONVERSATION: POST-LESSON REFLECTION

Overview

This lesson can be done immediately following the At the Table Colorado conversations or within the following days to have students reflect on their experiences. Teachers across Colorado will share feedback from their students. Their voice is an important part of the At the Table Colorado conversations. We value their thoughts, feelings, ideas and actions, because…Their Voice Matters!

Objectives • Reflect on their At the Table Colorado Experience
  • Share their thoughts and hear from others
  • Plan next steps
Materials
  • Big sheet of white paper or flip chart paper, colored pencils or markers and a camera

HEAD, HEART AND FEET

BEFORE: Bell-Ringer Activity

Have students silently respond in writing to the following prompts:

  • How did it feel to participate in the At the Table Colorado conversation?
  • What did the conversation make you think about? If there are ideas you did not have a chance to share during the conversation, share them here.
  • Would you want to participate in a conversation like that again? Explain.
  • If you had to choose one issue that was discussed in your conversation to address, what would it be and why?
  • What actions could the class or group take to address this issue?
DURING: Student Group Activity

Lead a discussion using the questions below, permitting as many students to share their ideas as possible. You may want to utilize a “one and done” rule so that once a student speaks, they cannot speak again until everyone in the class has spoken. This can help prevent a small group of students from dominating the conversation. It also will encourage all students to participate. Create an outline of a person. Chart ideas that capture what students most care about on the heart, promising ideas on the head, and what students will do (the action) on the feet. Explain to your students that on a big sheet of paper they will create an outline of a person, put promising ideas on the head, what they care about on the heart (or passions!), and what they will do (the action) on the feet.

Have students respond to the following questions:
  • For the heart, what is the most important issue facing your community that you care about?
  • For the head, which idea discussed at your At the Table Colorado conversation do you think has the most potential to bring about change in your community? Additional prompt: Are there other ideas with the potential to bring about change in your community that you did not have a chance to share during the conversation?
  • For the feet, share examples of an action you are most likely to take inspired by the conversation. What actions could the class or group take to address the issues discussed?

Please document student responses. To make the head, heart, and feet comments more distinguishable, you may want to use different colored markers. An example is provided below.

AFTER: Next Steps

Take a picture of your completed classroom drawing and upload the photo(s) to any social media platform and tag them with #AtTheTableColorado and #ATTCYouthVoices.

Head, Heart and Feet Exercise
  • What issue do you care about most in your community?

Place it next to your heart.

  • What idea discussed in your conversations has the most potential to bring about change in your community?

Write it next to your head.

  • What can action could you take to address this issue?

Write it next to your feet.

  • Take a picture of your completed drawings and share them via #AtTheTableColorado and #ATTCYouthVoices.

Printable pdf of this exercise.

SCHOOL SAFETY CONVERSATION STARTERS

To help get your conversations started, we’ve compiled a list of sample conversation prompts. There’s no need to start with the first question, to address them all or to take them in order. Consider these examples:

  • Do you think bullying is a serious problem in your school? How do adults in your school address bullying? What can the school do better to address bullying?
  • If you had unlimited resources to help prevent violence in your school, what would you do? What if you only had $100?
  • Have you ever felt unsafe at school? What would you like the school to do to help with violence and safety?
  • Have you ever seen someone else treated unkindly or unfairly by others because they looked different, spoke a different language, or came from a different culture? How did it make you feel?
  • Rosa Parks said, “You must never be fearful of what you are doing when it is right.” Have you ever been afraid to do the right thing? Is it hard to stand up for what is right?

 

WANT MORE?

For more ideas about hosting your At the Table Colorado event, including additional conversation prompts, please visit atthetablecolorado.org

We want to hear from you!

Feel free to share any additional information not requested by the survey via email to ideas@atthetablecolorado.org