ICC Teaches in Maryland

I frequently get asked questions about the Communicators For Christ (ICC) tour that Kali is on.

She left at the beginning of July and will come home in late November. Kali has been traveling with a team of eleven teens, teaching communications classes all across the United States.

When I arrived in Maryland to see Kali and the team, they were practicing for their dramatic evening program and for their opening assembly program.

The interns come from six different states. Before their tour is over, they will have traveled through at least 37 states, and will have made stops in twenty of those to teach and present.

The schedule they keep is daunting. They are up early every morning - 6:00 AM, or so, and go until 11:00 PM. Every day. Conference or traveling - they are always practicing, re-writing, memorizing, firming up lesson plans, something. All the time. Here Kali is setting up the facility for the conference.

Just a funny side-note, this fellow told me later in the day that the reason he wore his bow-tie was that he forgot his regular tie. Like I needed a reason - haha! I thought he just wanted to look dapper :).

Here the interns were explaining the different tracks the students could attend - depending on how much experience in speech they already had.

A rousing interpretation (not) of Romeo and Juliet - an example of how not to communicate with your audience :). (I realize you may be able to make out the interns' names on their tags, but I never post names of children - other than my own - on my blog. I figure the interns are posted on the ICC website, so my deleting their names doesn't really help anything.)

Believe it or not, this was a skit about four students debating. Four students who probably really didn't want to be there, let alone be there debating :).

One of Kali's jobs on tour is to be the Apprentice Coordinator. The apprentices are students in a leadership position. They have been to conferences before. Their role now is to serve the new students. The apprentices are the 'grunt' force behind the conferences, leaving the interns free to teach, coordinate, and run activities. Kali had a great group of apprentices in Maryland. They began their time together with some team-building activities. And, yes, they are screaming at each other. Literally. They scream at each other down the line, around the circle, and back. I am not sure what its purpose is - but the kids ALL love it! and it is a wonderful ice-breaker.

Conferences last three days. Classes and group activities fill the time. Interactive, high-paced classes and activities.

Did I mention they were interactive? This was during Big Bart, The Villain - a staple at CFC/ICC conferences.

They split up into groups and watched video of famous orators. They talked about what made the orator someone of influence and prepared a short skit highlighting that orator's skills. We had the hard part. We had to figure out who their orator was.

A group presentation.

One of the group activities was S3 - Social Structure Sites - or something like that. The teams represented various web networks and their purpose was to bring people and capital to their servers. They learned to work together, to strategize, and to defend.

My favorite picture from the Maryland conference :).

This fellow ran the Hacker Station during the simulation.

The students love this activity.

And the apprentices get to help the interns run the simulation. It's all about the funny costumes, too :).

End of Day One. All the students go back to their homes and to sleep. Not so the interns. They spend another hour or so practicing the Awakening Program.

Airborn - in both directions, going forward and then going backwards across her lap. I just didn't get a picture of it :(.

Day Two started with some communications activities. This is a popular one - listening, following, and giving correct instructions.

In and out of the pews, all around the hall, and in the walkways.

Practicing orotunde! I'm sure that's not spelled correctly - they praticed projection and speaking from the diaphragm. (That's probably not spelled right either.)

The interns also teach debate classes.

Kali gets to teach the M & M Debates. She loves it! The students love it! They get packages of M & M's and they debate whether or not the Mars' packaging of M & M's is beneficial to the consumer.

The more experienced students also debate in a style called Public Forum.

Hands-down, my favorite activity at the conferences is Model U.N. - Model United Nations. The students represent various countries. They are given an emergency scenario - a biological virus being released - and have to pass resolutions, following Roberts' Rules - to remedy the situation.

Day Two ended with the Awakening Program. The Maryland conference saw a lot of changes in the AP. In case you are wondering - the fellow with the blue mustache is actually portraying Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast.

There's that jump again. I think he has a little more height here.

The closing scene of the Silver Cord

Day Three brought group photos. Plenty of them in various poses.

They also did group presentations of various speech types. This particular interpretation was of Cinderella - with the kids' own twist :). He was having none of that kissing the princess stuff!

Debating the pros and cons of everyone having a pink car. Yeah, how many positive things can you think of that deal with pink?

Non-verbal interpretation!

And all too soon, the conference comes to an end and it's time to thank the interns and the apprentices for all their hard work!


So. That's pretty much what happens at a CFC/ICC Conference - in a nutshell. A lot of work and planning goes into it and in three short days, it's all over. Then the next step comes - getting out on the platform and speaking. That's what it's all about!