Dialogue between Edward Wilson and Socrates? Chacho’s Morning Meeting – D59

For this morning meeting, we did something unusual. Chacho’s activity consisted in stating some conditions and then writing a dialogue about it. The conditions were that the dialogue must be between Edward O. Wilson and Socrates, in the moon, during Christmas season, and they would talk about the Rubrics of the MPC’ers. It was a great way to start the day with some creativity and imagination. We only had 10 minutes although it was more like 15 minutes, but anyways I didn’t finish it. I would eventually finish it because it was a very good exercise. 

Here is with what I came up with…

Kata’s Morning Meeting – D58

Kata’s morning meeting consisted of two parts. The first one was that we must draw a fireplace, four Christmas stockings above the fireplace, a Christmas tree, and a basket full of candy canes. All of these must be drawn in a paper on top of our heads. You really don’t want to see how that went… The second part of was to get into pairs, back to back, and one was in charge of describing a Christmas object Kata gave us and the other must draw it, and vice versa. That didn’t went that bad. Cool activity! 

Majo’s Morning Meeting – D57

Today’s facilitator for the morning meeting was Majo. She showed us this campaign called Acción MOB, originated in Guatemala that tries to create consciousness on the power of each one of us to change the people that surround us one action at a time. It’s really cool! We also watched some videos, all of them very motivational. Here are the following links:

Facebook Page of Acción MOB, Youtube Channel of Acción MOB, Life Vest Inside: Kindness Boomerang, MOVE, EAT, LEARN

Also, just for you to have fun, I’ll leave this video called El Estilo de Peter la Anguila. It’s hilarious!

Morning Meeting by Bert? Improv! – D56

This morning Bert was going to facilitate the meeting, but since he has been sick (rumor says that he has pneumonia) we facilitated as a group. First we watched some videos and wait for the other because we were only 8, and then only three more arrived later and we discussed a quote Bert gave us. We changed the method of the attendance sheet, so now everyone is responsible for putting his or her name on the respective column and that way we will know who's absent.

These are the videos we watched for today's morning meeting:

TED2012 remixed, 60 Second Adventures in Economics (combined), The History of Nikola Tesla, The History of Thomas Edison, and The History of Che Guevara.

We also discussed this quote, first in pairs and then as a group.

“…(As a public school teacher) I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meaning of our lives…We’ve built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don’t know any other way.”

- John Taylor Gatto

On Time... And New Method

The Crime of the Zebra

Morning Meeting by Alejo – D55

This morning I woke up with a terrible lower back pain that I assume it was because of yesterday’s physical activity. Bad call on my behalf. I was almost decided to stay in bed and rest, but I couldn’t forgive myself to loose the battle for punctuality with Pablito like that, so I woke up and came to the MPC.

Alejo’s morning meeting was a reference to Sarah Kay’s TEDTalk, If I Should Have a Daughter. The activity consisted on writing ten things we know are true. Here are my ten things I consider as true. Here and here are the links to Alejo’s blog were you can find what the other wrote.

10 Things I Know To Be True

JavierP’s Morning Meeting and Sharing Linkage P4 – D54

Javier Parellada facilitated today’s morning meeting. We did two activities. The first one was that he would touch the shoulder of someone and he would be the “liar” and the rest of the group would have to guess who that person was. We did this two times and to our surprise, the first time no one was the liar and the second everyone was the liar. It was very ingenious and fun to see the different reaction and corporal language each of us had. The second activity was more of a prank to Bert. One person was supposed to go out and when he or she got back everyone would moo, but only one would moo louder and that person would have to guess whom it was. The prank didn’t go quite well but it was funny.

We took the Agora time to continue our activity of sharing linkage. Today, the ones who shared were Alejo, JavierT, Majo, Grace, Bert, and Chacho. 

Lucía’s Morning Meeting and Sharing Linkage P3 – D52

Lucía facilitated today’s morning meeting. She did two activities, both in pairs and to make us more aware of our senses and emotions. The first one was to guess an emotion the other person was supposed to show only with his or her eyes. Isa’s emotion was excitement, which I thought but I guessed it was more happiness than that. My emotion was surprise, and Isa guessed it very fast. The second activity was that one of us (me) would be blindfolded and I had to guess what I was tasting. The first one was an Oreo (I guessed it was a cookie, but not an Oreo), the second was “leche condensada” (I guessed correctly), the third one was a fruit called “granada” (I guessed), and the last one was linseed oil with lime, which was disgusting (I guessed it was oil). It’s fun to realize how much we use our senses to associate things like food, and when we loose one sense, in this case sight, we have a hard time finding out what are we eating and that makes us find other characteristics we take for granted like texture.

The second part of the morning was about sharing linkage. This was the third time we did this, and today Ingrid, Isa, and Carmen shared it with us.

Isa's face of excitement

Marce’s Morning Meeting and Sharing – D51

Marce facilitated today’s morning meeting. She showed us a video called, People and the Choices They Make, by Jim Rohn, a motivational speaker. The video is about the importance of documentation, accountability, and being the best one can be. Only humans have the capacity to decide how much to grow (not physically but mentally) and that’s what makes us different from all other beings. Trees grow to their full capacity, it’s their nature, but our nature could be to conform and if we don’t decide to be the best we can be, to give everything we can, we will tend to conform. Another thought on this is the will power, the energy that keep us moving forward. How big is the difference between waking up tired and not wanting to wake up, and waking up with more energy to keep moving forward, success after success. In the latter, we can expand our energy storage, fueling it with our actions and successes.

After that, we share our linkage. Today, only Kira, Tony, Karen, and Marce, shared their linkage. The first three were visiting us for the day.

Gaby’s Morning Meeting? And Sharing – D50

Gaby was supposed to have facilitated today’s morning meeting, but she has been absent so far. Instead we decided to make the roster rubric so we are on the same page when a group is in charge of the chores of the week. What we came up with was the following,

Every assigned group must:

• Bring goodies, snacks, 2 pounds of coffee, 1 pound of sugar, 1 box of tea. All due on Monday.
• Clean all the common spaces.
• Open and close the windows.
• Have coffee ready at 7:45 a.m. 
• Take out the trashcan and empty it. 
• Pick up the water (garrafones) at Atención al Estudiante. 
• Check that the projector and lights are shut down before leaving.
• Charge the iPad. 

For the Agora time, we followed the sharing activities by telling everyone our linkage. Yesterday, or should I say today, at 12:00 a.m. made a Prezi presentation of my genealogical tree. It took me about an hour and a half, but I was very pleased with the result. I found a lot of fun facts, and the most interesting one for the MPC is that somehow somewhere, I’m related to Amable Sánchez, although not by blood you may say. He was married with a sister of the wife of the brother of my grandfather (of my father’s family). Cool, ha?!

Majo’s Morning Meeting and Plato’s Apology Dialogue – D49

Today’s morning meeting was facilitated by Majo. She showed us three videos of Michael Stevens’ Youtube channel Vsauce. The first one was, What Color is a Mirror?, the second, YouDon’t Type Alone, and the third one, Whatis Déja Vu?. All of them are excellent; they are entertaining and educational, with many fun facts. Nice done Majo!

Later we clean up our spaces and have some individual work. Then, we had some kind-of Greek memory activity and then Plato’s Apology dialogue. The dialogue was very interesting and insightful, although I don’t think we have achieved a good level of inspection and deepness on the text during our dialogues. Mabe also pointed this out, and we decided to come more prepared to our dialogues, well read and with questions. Oh, and we had Karen Mayeens, Gabriel Calzada’s wife, as a guest. Although she didn’t say anything, her presence was nice.

Nobody’s Morning Meeting and Sharing Time – D47

Today’s morning meeting was a little awkward because nobody was facilitating it. Nevertheless, we took the time to make some announcements and talk about the ways we can help the people that are often missing or getting late. After that and until the end of Agora, we followed yesterday’s sharing activity in order to know each other better. We had a very good bonding time, in which we could get to know each other a little more. There were some emotional moments when Carmen told us how she felt living with her aunt and missing her family, since they don’t live in the city. Another emotional moment was when Pablito shared with us how he became, after being very religious, a nonreligious person, and the causes of that.

The Morning Meeting was an Illusion (guided by Javier T.) – D46

For today’s morning meeting, Javier Tabush showed us some pictures that could be seen as in 3D. He told us that he used to do this because his grandmother gave him books about this and he practiced a lot. It was cool, but many of us couldn’t see the hidden 3D images in the pictures he showed us. It reminded me of a similar exercise I saw on 9gag, which was very cool so I found it and posted it on MPC at UFM. Follow this link if you want to try it. 

During Agora, we decided to know each other more, so we circled up and everyone told, in 30 seconds, something important about them. Most of us told the basic stuff and some fun facts. I told them something like this; “I was born in January 10^th, 1992 in Guatemala. I’m the youngest of two brothers and one sister. I studied at Colegio Internacional Montessori. I have practiced karate and I’m a black belt on it; also I used to love to cook but now not so much. I’m used to be more afraid of aliens so for me, E.T. was a nightmare (laughs). Also, my grandmother was from Lebanon (Javier Tabush’s family is also from Lebanon).” It was a very enriching experience.

Later, we had individual work, time I dedicated to read “Words and Rules” with Isa.

Grace’s Morning Meeting, Group Brainstorming, and Individual Work – D33

Grace directed today’s morning meeting. For that, she showed us some videos about dancing. One, which I very liked, is called, To People Who Love Dance. The others were of dancing choreography of a dance show and of her own dancing.

After Agora and Bert’s instructions, we got with our groups to brainstorm about UFM’s resources. Then, we told our contributions to the whole group and put them in order. We are making a Google Doc for later putting them with a better structure and more professional for our curriculum. We end our morning with some time for individual work and a Free Cities conference, which turn out to be a presentation of a doctoral thesis about seasteading. I must say that this conference is one of the worst ones I have ever had. It was terrible, bad rhetoric and not very good arguments. If I have to say something about what I learned from this experience, is to choose wisely how I use my time and not spend it in useless conferences. Ok, maybe I did learn something else, and that is about other forms of creating competition to the government. What I really disliked was the how the conference was given.

Be Original: Alejo’s Morning Meeting – D32

Today’s morning meeting was about a couple of videos. The first was a clip from the movie Garden State, which was about creating a completely original moment in history. After this clip, we decided to create our original moment in history. It was very funny! I encourage you do the same, you’ll feel great. Then, we watched Steve Jobs’ Vision of the World and discussed it later. We talked about believing and being certain that you can change the world and the things around you. When you realize this and combine it with hard work, then the world is just waiting for you to change it!

The Right Perspective: Lore’s Morning Meeting – D31

For the first or second time since we began de MPC, we were all on time (except Ingrid in both occasions). It was great to start the day like this. Today was Lorena’s first direction of a morning meeting. After some announcements, she showed us a video called "Having the Right Perspective", by Joel Osteen, a Christian preacher and a great speaker. I have to admit that at first I thought it would be a video of Christian values and finding God, and I don’t like those kinds of messages. I was wrong. The video talks about having a level of gratitude for what we have, and not complain of what’s possible wrong with our life. It is about finding, in everything, the positive aspect. It also relates with the previous video we watched called, “Celebrating what’s right in the world”. It’s not that having a positive attitude will fix everything or that we have to ignore our problems and wrong things we have, it’s about having a better perspective to confront the problems we may have.

We had individual work until 11 a.m. Then we were supposed to have a dialogue on “The Trivium”, but since almost everyone had not read more than 50 pages, Bert talked to us about commitment and “giving a shit” for the MPC. After this pep talk, we did start the dialogue, which was based on, “what is the metaquestion of chapter 1?” We inquire in many of the chapter’s topics, and at first concluded that the metaquestion was, “what are the liberal arts and what is its purpose”. Later, we talked about other related subjects such as the trivium as the only way of finding the truth, since the trivium stands for all aspects of communication. We didn’t got to answer the metaquestion, but it was a very interesting dialogue.

Franz’s Morning Meeting and Individual Work – D30

After resisting for 30 MPC days to direct a morning meeting, Franz finally directed it. His activity was about reading something he wrote called, “What I talk about when I talk about “This” and “That””. As I understood it, it was about doing what we really want and not what society expects and wants us to do, just to fulfill some “social requirements”. It relates a lot with Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance, because both talk about speaking up for yourself and not to surrender your liberty to the society’s approval. The activity was cool, although it lacked some dynamics to do it more interesting. Plus, he didn’t make time for announcements or for making the schedule for the day, but I don’t blame him because, being honest, he hasn’t been in many morning meetings for him to know that.

The rest of the morning was for individual work. I decided to work on some documentation and to make most of the eight-week self-evaluation Bert gave us. I think it was averagely productive.

Carmen’s qualities morning meeting – D29

After the usual announcements, Carmen made an activity for the morning meeting. It consisted of writing in a piece of paper our name and then pass it to the right, in order for that person to write something positive about that person. At the end of the round, we ended with more than 20 positive things, since Carla and Bert joined us for the activity. I really enjoyed it and think it was a great activity to reinforce our perspective on the positive things each of the MPC’ers has.

This is what everyone wrote about me,

Painting: morning meeting with Mabe – D27

This morning meeting was directed by Mabe. I want to say that she masterly directed it, but I can’t because she confused the rules a little. Nevertheless, it has been the best morning meeting so far. The activity consisted that each of us should choose a paint color, aquarelle or olio, and one at a time paint something in a canvas she brought. As a group, we decided to draw a face expressing joy. It was a great activity, which I enjoyed a lot. Although I liked the painting more in the middle of the activity than in the end, the lesson learned from it was very enriching. It was also, in some aspect, frustrating because some people screwed the painting by drawing childish things like tongues and drawing over someone else’s work, actually not making the painting express joy but something else. I then realized that the painting is not the worth thing to learn from this activity, but how people react and behave to different situations they encountered. All of this was discussed by debriefing a couple of hours later.

*Watch the video of Mabe's activity on my Youtube channel, it's really cool!

Morning meeting (Pablito) and individual work – D26

For the morning meeting, Pablito showed us a very interesting and touching video about Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest Holocaust survivor. Her passion for music is impressive, but even more impressive is her willingness to live, in every day of her life. Just enjoying every moment, having no heart feelings or hate for anyone, not even the Germans. Pablito also showed us a page, in which we can find a large number of classic music authors.

Emotional moment watching Alice's video

Here are the video of Alice Herz and the page for classic music.

After the morning meeting we had individual work. To be honest, I didn’t use it as I should, since I procrastinated a lot during this time.

Morning meeting (Katarina) – D25

Today, Kata directed the morning meeting, and for that she showed us two very interesting videos about the history of Halloween and the other about the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012. It’s important to know histories like these ones, because now a day we used to believe in today’s meaning of these events, when actually if one studies the true history and meaning of these events one can realize they have a bad connotation or not.

Halloween video

Mayan Calendar, December 21, 2012 video