As we started our new 2003-2004 Project, we started out by getting to know one another. Their first mission was to talk to a variety of adults and children around them to gather information. They were given a week to discover what a community meant to anyone they talked to, and to start the networking process, by finding out who around them had taken a "Voyage into the Unknown" and, how it had affected them.

 

Here are a few comments about what we learned at that time.  These are statements from children from Third through Fifth Grade.


What is a Community and What Makes Up a Successful Team? 

I think that a successful team is a group of people who get along well, know what they are doing, and don’t give up no matter what.   I think the qualities of people on the team would be nice, outgoing, smart and bright.  I think a community is a large group of producers and consumers with a mayor, treasurer and secretary.

I think a community is a place where people live, work and have fun together.  I think a community is a place where there are friends and, there are places where they can hang out.

I think a community is a group of people who work, play, have fun, go to school, and live.  My mom thinks a community is a group of people who live in the same area, and share the same beliefs.  My dad thinks a community is a neighborhood that shares stories, schools, parks, and other rescue groups.

A community is a place with people that work together to form a safe environment.  They work together as a team to teach and to help others.  This is what my mom thinks is a community.

A place where people work, play and live.  It should have a bank, gas station, road, store, restaurant, fire and police station, Red Cross, and a mall.

It should have food, mail, people, a mall and a gas station.

It is a place where people live together and share a common way of life.  Example:  a farming community is a place where everyone farms.  A community has a place to buy your basic needs like food and clothes, has a place to learn (school,) a place to learn about God.  Communities build friendships.

My mom says a community should have a grocery store and post office like where we live now.
My Dad says teamwork means we would work well together and be hard working.


I think a community is a place that is well built and has good offices to help the community and people that live there.  I think a successful team is a team that works well together and help each other solve problems because everyone thinks differently and maybe some other person has had the same problem as you.   You would also be making friends.  The type of people that I would want in my group would be hard workers and thinkers and they are nice to other people and are not too shy to speak out.

I think a community is someplace where people live, work, play and have fun together.  I also think that it is made   up of offices, houses, buildings, and stores.


A community would have a YMCA, schools, fire dept, police department and courts;  area where people live and share;  people helping each other, taking care, teaching, sharing time, talent, treasures and resources.


A community is a group of people who working together to make their place better than if they worked individually in order to sustain life.

There would be good schools, homes, clean environment, health care, good leaders who take care of community members, help each other, fire and police department.

People would live together and cooperate; work for good of community and for common goals. They would be successful if they understood goals and that each has different strengths.

People are working together, focusing on same goal, living in the same area, and would have good listening skills and cooperate

A community is an environment of plants and animals

A community has a police and fire department.  People live and share together.  People are helping each other.

A place where people work, play and have fun together.

In a community, people share same interests and concerns.   They elect a small group to lead.  

A community is a place-well-built, has good office team that works well together and can solve problems together.

A community is like Manchester Road-- grocery stores, fire department, stores like Wal-Mart, and has hard-working people.

A community is a place where you work, live, and play close by.  Like Hawaii with ocean, houses, and shows a love of art.

A place where people would live, work, play and have fun.

I would design a community at the foot of a mountain with a river.

A community is sections of a city--rural, suburban.
A community is Kirkwood- city council, parks, recreation, all ages, and all races. 

Office work is like a community that enjoys working together.

A Community has things in common like people who work together to get things done, forms a team with different skills to have success, where people work and play

A community is a section of a city.  There are three different kinds of communities:  rural, suburban, and urban.  Rural is farming where there are few houses with a lot of farms--the houses are miles from each other.  Suburban is a place with lots of houses and schools.  Urban is the city like downtown.

A community starts with a group of people that have things in common.  They work together to get the job done.  They want to do what is best not just for themselves, but for all people in their community.


A community is a group of people that form a team.  They each have different skills to contribute to further the community.   The better the people work together the better the community works.  This improves each member’s quality of life.


A community is a place where people work and play.

Mom thinks community is a place where people worship, live and work.
Dad thinks it is a place where people live, work and receives education.

A community is a group of people who share the same interests and same concerns like people who work together, school together, church together and play together.  A group of people decide a smaller group of them to lead them and make decisions for them.

Kirkwood is a community in the truest sense of the word.  It has its own government with a mayor, city council, police, and fire department, parks and stores and schools.  There are wonderful old homes with some built before 1900 and some brand new homes too.  All ages and races of people live there and raise their families and enjoy family life being with each other in the community.  My dad works as an attorney requiring him to go to law school for a long time.  He has been an attorney for almost thirty years and helps people with their problems.  He says he still enjoys going to work every day.  At his work there are other attorneys and assistants that help with the things he does every day.  His work is like a community as they all share in the work, the problems and the enjoyment of what they do together and share in the rewards of their jobs and helping the people that they work with.

A community is: 

...A group of people living together with the same likes and interests.
...A defined area where people work interact and live together.
...And a group of people, living and working together for the common good.

A community is a group of people who work, play, and live close by.
I would like my community to be like the community of Hawaii.  The community will be surrounded by the ocean.  There will be a lot of people living close by.  There will be people of all ages in the community.  There will be houses for people.  This will be a community for people who love art.  There are a lot of art museums.  The wall of buildings and houses will be for people to paint and draw.  You could paint or draw all day.  Everybody in the community is an artist.

A group of people who work together to make life in their location better than they could individually; where people use their skills in different areas to sustain life; place where people live and work together. 

 

A community is the people you live with:  family, friends, schoolmates, and more.

I think a community should have:  Good schools, places to grow food, enough homes for everyone, a clean environment (air, water) and good health care.  Leaders should think of what the people in the community need and listen to what they say.  A leader will help all the members of the community work together.


I think a good community is a place that most people are friends and they help each other.  A community should have an emergence station for fires and injuries.  Also, I think a community should have water parks and amusement parks to have fun together.

A community is any group of things that live together and cooperate for the good of the group. I would like a community to be a group of people that all realize that working for the good of the community benefits them individually as well. I would like a community to be a group where everyone looks out for each other and takes care of one another.


A team is a group of individuals working toward a common goal.
A team is a group of people that work together toward the same goal.
A successful team is made of people who all understand the goal and realize that they all have different strengths that contribute in different ways to achieving that goal. A successful team is made up of people who cooperate with one another, respect one another and want to see everyone succeed.



People the children talked to about a "Voyage into the Unknown"


My parents came to America from Bombay, then to St.  Louis.  They experienced cultural shock.  It was so quiet in St Louis.


My parents took a trip to Cancun.  They had new adventures like riding in a glass bottom boat and snorkeling.

I interviewed someone who took a voyage to an unknown place.  I found out during the interview that:

He went to Ireland and London for the first time with only a week to prepare to go.   He was asked by his company to help some Americans who were living in Europe. He said, "I thought all the buildings would be old, the people would be crabby and would not like Americans.  I was worried about driving and walking since the cars drive on the left side of the street."

 I found that this was all mostly not true.  The people were very nice.  It was much cleaner and nicer looking than I had heard.  I would take another adventure voyage like this.

 

Voyages into the unknown people took trips:  a trip to downtown Hartford, Connecticut;  trip to Hilton Head Island;  Myrtle Beach South Carolina;  lost in India;  lost in a park;  lost in Target;  lost in Chicago;  Johnson Shut-ins and being lost in Southern, MO;  camping,   lost in Amsterdam, Sweden; voyages to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany, and El Salvador.

My person took a new job in St. Louis. They did not feel comfortable at first.  They now have a job in the area of Math, are working on a CD, did a musical, help design web pages, took classes in college about chemical engineering, did New York undercover work.

Parent's honeymoon--When my parents went on their honeymoon, they drove to Florida.  On their way to Florida, they drove through Atlanta.  That is where it all begins.  As they approached the outskirts of Atlanta they had to decide which way to get around the city.  They decided to take the left.  Quickly, they figured out it was a bad choice.  They ran into lots of road construction and dead-stopped traffic.  They decided to take side streets through Atlanta and this is where they got lost.  Their map only listed main streets.  Once again they ran into road construction.  They then had to go on roads not listed on the map.  At one point they were on a road that had a speed limit of 30 miles per hour.  Even though this was the speed limit, everyone was going 50 mph.  Everyone was driving like crazy and they could not get off the road.  At this point, they were really lost.  Luckily, the road ended right by the Atlanta Falcons Stadium.  They then figured out where the highway was that they wanted.  It still took them a little while because of road construction.  In the end, it probably would have been better to stay on the highway, but it was fun for them to drive through the city.

My Voyage under the Sea


Through my life, I have been to many voyages like in Cancun, Mexico.  I went on a journey on a glass bottom boat and saw the second largest coral reef in the world.  We made plans with a travel agent.  It was exciting to see fish and coral.  Then we got to go snorkeling.  But, we could not touch anything because it could die.  This was an exciting adventure that I would like to do again.

Going into the Unknown

My dad was the boss of his department.  Then one day he had to move to a different office building.  He went into the unknown because at first he didn't know what his new building would be like.  Therefore, he was very nervous.

Trip to the unknown:  My dad had the privilege of coming to America.  To us, we know what America is like since we live here, but to him at age 17, it was like leaving to an unknown world.  He had no idea what America was all about.  With $20 in his pocket and not knowing the future, he took on the adventure.  He had never traveled in an airplane before.  That itself was an adventure!  After arriving in N. Y., seeing different people, different transit system and different weather, he had a big culture shock!  He flew again from N. Y. to St. Louis.  Compared to a city like Bombay, St. Louis was very quiet, with no tall buildings except the ones downtown.


I can understand how he felt because I have been in the same situation when I went to India in January 1999.  As time passed, he got used to living here in America.  Now after so many years, he does laugh about his past experience.  And now he doesn't want to go back to India for good!

We Learned About Networking for the First Time.


I found out the occupations of those around me for future networking possibilities.

Industrial Engineering,  Nurse, Building Data centers and research labs,  Camping/Environment, Astronomy, Flight Engineer, and Math.

The person I interviewed has taken a job in a new place called Tokyo, Japan and has built a boat out of wood.  Another one has done exploring by driving, directs a web development university department.  The feelings these two people had when exploring were: excited, curious, full of anticipation, happy and fulfilled.


My person took a new job after working at the old one for 20 years.  It felt scary because they did not know what it would be like or what the people would be like.

My person works in New York in Math, the other has been in USAF 20 years, worked in space program, and math areas. 

 

You would need networking if you lost job and need a new one.  By networking with people you might not even know, you can get a job or anything else you need.  The people I interviewed said that if you were a teacher and you talked to other teachers about different ideas that would be networking.  Networking is passing things from one person to another.  Another person said that when you lose a job, you might go to a conference and talk to people who do things like you.   You can find a job.  This is another way of networking.