JUNTOS -- a procedure developed by Benjamin Franklin... and worth using as

This blog post earns me points toward several mini-badges for the following topics:
2f Explain information and compellingly persuade others of its implications  (The explaining might need more work, but I hope Scott Looney's work is compelling enough to move mountains)
3b Lead though influence  (I hope readers will see how to impose a viewpoint on friends and how to interrupt the lives of colleagues GENTLY by collecting items in a blog.  Many of these words were originally sent by text message and by email.   They are collected her for historical reasons and for the ease of reviewing these comments five years from now when we are all working in no-grade environments.)
3d Facilitate group discussions  (If items are displayed openly, then colleagues who are busy can check in six months later and catch up)
3f Enlist help (please click on the blog post HERE and give comments and make suggestions)
3e Teach, coach and counsel others (I hope by collecting our comments, we will inspire others to build on what we have discussed here)
SEE the list of Skills   TINYURL.com/AListofSkillsPDF To the group

Gentlemen
I want to introduce you each to the others on this group chat
Wenceslas
Dennis  
Jair
Ugur
Dennis -- Dennis Yuzenas is a teacher in West Palm beach who works at Oxbridge academy.  He introduced me to national history day.  When i wandered on that site, i found. Tinyurl.com/SunnHD.   Remarkable project
Matt -  Matt Blazek teaches in Maryland and he has a book of projects for guiding students.   Www.Tinyurl.com/blazekprojects.   
Omar -creator 
Enrique --  Enrique is a former principal in California.  He was nice to let me interview him in 2009 when i visited his big picture "inspired" school.  He created a "teach history backwards" approach to make history relevant.  SEE THE VIDEO ...and Enrique met ms. deeette naukana, a remarkable charter school principal  ...  EBOOK  TINYURL.com/PersonalHistoryEbook
Ionel -- 
Noel -- entrepreneur and founder of the John Corlette Society and promoter of JC's ideas   See the speech   see the FACEBOOK page
Wes -- entrepreneur, creator of a language learning system. and manager of ELSLeaders.com, a sailing school with a focus on skills. 
Will 
FEEL FREE to invite others to look at this blog post and the previous one HERE
1. What is Junto?

2. What is the history behind the idea (and why did Franklin use the term... and how did they pronounce the word in English?)

3. How can we use this idea?

4. The use of a BLOG to build

5. The value of inviting others to watch the conversation


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1. What is Junto?
The Junto, also known as the Leather Apron Club, was a club for mutual improvement established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklinin Philadelphia. The Leather Apron Club's purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and to exchange knowledge of business affairs.

2. What is the history behind the idea (and why did Franklin use the term... and how did they pronounce the word in English?)

RULES

Franklin describes the formation and purpose of the Junto in his autobiography:

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased.

Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

3. How can we use this idea?
We can spread the use of JUNTOS by asking students to build their own junto or discussion group.   The rules (above) are laid out in the wikipedia article. 

4. The use of a BLOG to build (sustain) a conference or an on-going discussion
I started a similar blog at 50yearsofSubversiveTeaching.blogspot.com and you are invited to visit that effort to celebrate the Postman Questions  TINYURL.com/PostmanQuestions
In the same way, we can update each other on the progress of the spread of Scott Looney's idea...  as the YouTube views climb from 2000 to 2 million.

5. The value of inviting others to watch the conversation
Perhaps this public blog will inspire others to look at our discussions about The List of Skills CLICK HERE



List of questions

This is the list of questions Franklin devised to guide the discussions at Junto meetings (from Franklin's papers, dated 1728, and included in some editions of his autobiography):^[5]

1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? Particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?
2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?
3. Has any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?
4. Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?
6. Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? Or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? Of imprudence? Of passion? Or of any other vice or folly?
8. What happy effects of temperance? Of prudence? Of moderation? Or of any other virtue?
9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?
10. Who do you know that are shortly going [on] voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?
11. Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? To their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?
14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?
16. Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? And what can the Junto do towards securing it?
17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?
18. Have you lately heard any member’s character attacked, and how have you defended it?
19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?
20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?
21. Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?
22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?
23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?
24. Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?

Any person to be qualified as a member was to stand up, lay his hand upon his chest, over his heart, and be asked the following questions, viz.

1. Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not.
2. Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? Answer. I do.
3. Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Answer. No.
4. Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others? Answer. Yes.

Let's develop a list of skills for students to use

An Continuing on-going online Conference (COOC).   SEE the note about JUNTOS

The following "List of Skills" appeared in a press release by the Mastery Transcript Consortium.  The press release can be found here

Search terms:  press release hawken no grades transcript cleveland plain dealer

Go to TINYURL.com/AListOfSkills for a folder of possible forms
For a form with BOXES, go to TINYURL.com/AListOfSkillsPDF


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TOPIC or CLAIM TO DISCUSS:  The Mastery Transcript will create a need for training. I think there are four areas of possible needs that will arise when the Mastery transcript is adopted by 150 private schools. The four needs are 
a) parent education, 
b) student education, 
c) teacher education and 
d) principal education. 
Each audience has a different set of introductions, but the essential tools are with us right now. 

We need to 
-- teach history backwards, 
-- we need a list of projects and examples of projects so that students know what a good project looks like and what a needs more work type of project looks like. 
-- We have the "how to make a free website" book. Now we just need the structure to be ready for these documents.

Question 1.  Is there an opportunity for us as a group and individually to spread the idea about the Mastery transcript? I think the answer is yes. But I look for your comments

Question 2 Are there opportunities or teachers that currently teach who could use a sheet of skills?  Download the sheets at TINYURL.com/ALISTOFSKILLS  and a specific sheet at TINYURL.com/AListOfSkillsPDF

Question 3. There is a list of eight general skill areas with subsets of how to set up the skills or examples of the skills. Could you look at that list and then give feedback about what is missing from the list or if there's a better wording for some of the sub skills?

Question 4. What do you think of the idea of mini-badges? Why does a student need to get all of the evidence at one school when there could be a self-badging process?  The students are asked to give evidence for the skill that they claim, and if they give enough evidence, why couldn't someone self-badge or "evaluate yourself" and say, "I have learned this badge. I have demonstrated the ability to persuade Skill 2f because I have 300,000 hits on my YouTube channel and that clearly shows that I know how to appeal to an audience. This is evidence that I have a good organization in my communication." So the push would be to have a parallel badging system so that while we're waiting for the Consortium to reveal their structure and recommendations, students can already be earning badges.

SEE TINYURL.com/CPPPScott for the "school should not hurt" pitch (presentation).

LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS... One of the core principles of the Consortium is that there are no standards that everybody has to use.   There will not be a standardized form or a standardized list of skills. So why not allow students to collect enough evidence and match their evidence to evidence on a rubric and compare their collection of evidence to an example of a student who has demonstrated good communication or good analysis or good collaboration, and then the student could just declare, "I now have a mini badge for this particular area I just need to accumulate 25 of these many badges and then I have a full badge demonstrating that I am a good communicator. There wouldn't be the same weight as a school issuing such a badge, but it would allow students who are not in a "List of Schools" type of school to create their own portfolio with badges so that their website looks like the website of a Mastery transcript. This would be a push to any school to see how easy it is to accumulate this information because students are generating the same information...from current work.

Send your comments to ManyPosters@gmail.com.  THANK YOU or text your comments to 954 693-6379  my google voice

TINYURL.com/NoGradesBlog is the link to this blogpost.
Let's spread this idea.  CLICK ON the video
We can update each other in this blog post on the progress of the spread of Scott Looney's idea...  as the YouTube views climb from 2000 to 2 million.