5 life hacks of teaching parli pro in middle school!

What did I think was missing from a 7th grade general agriscience class's unit on FFA? If you thought the answer was rules from our man Bob then you were right! Today I taught a 7th grade class how to adopt or fail a main motion. Here are some life hacks on this educational experience! 

1. Middle schoolers are just as excited as you are! When they took control of their own learning they were eager to learn more! I had them match the basic definitions of Main Motion, Second, Debate, Vote and Vote Results. They did this super fast and wanted to try it out! 

2. Excitement leads to students talking over you and getting each other round up sometimes. For example, I had them race to match the words and they ended up fighting over the winner. This allowed me to capture their attention by call and responses! The teacher I was shadowing loved it and couldn't believe how fast I got her kids attention! 

3. Be specific! I cannot stress this enough. The teacher I was working with helped lead a mock meeting! I love doing mock meetings, but guidelines are needed. She had them write a motion down. " write the first 2 words as I move and then add a place for a field trip" were her directions.

 By the end of class we passed motions to go inside a vending machine at a YMCA, inside a Nintendo switch, the bronx zoo and taco bell. These motions were helpful because the students wanted to discuss (well informally discuss) these motions, but it was hard to keep them on track and remember the meaning behind the prompt!

4. Never underestimate your kids. I went in thinking I would do main motion and they would never understand and it was going to be a complete flop! Well these guys learned main motion, division of the assembly, amend and previous question!! They learned basic of what they do not the full bob version, but they knew when to use them!

 This all started because someone said the voice vote was a tie and tried debating that with me. So we showed division of the assembly. Other students thought the debate was "dumb", so we did previous question. It shows how the students can pick up on small details and ask the right questions for an opportunity to grow their knowledge.

5. Teaching middle school agriculture is actually pretty sweet! They get their discovery degrees and basically and learn how to care for plants and animal and get to build projects in wood shop. Never have seeing a middle school class and their excitement makes me want to teach middle school and advocate for middle school ag! 

At the end of the day I had a ton of fun working with these younger kids on a topic I am so passionate about. They asked good questions and really got into debate and making motions. If nothing else every student was able to tell me what a main motion was, what a second means and how to word main motion and amend. 

Request to be excused from a duty

Hello Everyone! As always Robert thought of every situation that might pop up! I am going to deep dive in this blog about the motion "Request to be excused from a duty."

Below is the use and characteristics of this motions:

Classification: Incidental

Purpose: To allow members to be excused from certain obligations.

Example: If a societies bylaws require members to attend a certain amount of meetings, hold officers, be on committees or even prepare work outside of a regular meeting this motion allows the member to be able to decline a part of their duties/demands as a member. This is a great way to be able to be flexible with members, but fair as well.



Precedence: Take precedence over any motion as long as the purpose is connected.

Applied to: This motion can be applied to all subsidiary motions except postpone indefinitely

In order when someone else has the floor and should be dealt with immediately

Does not require a second except when moved formally

Is debatable and amendable 

Requires a majority vote, but usually handled as a unanimous consent.

Only a NEGIVTIVE vote can be reconsidered




Why would you use it?

If you were assigned to a duty that you cannot complete or where not there when they assigned it to you.

It is a request, but is debatable and amendable and requires majority vote or unanimous consent.

Request must be made immediately

"All in favor? All Opposed?"- Reflecting my lesson

Preview of my lesson: 

I had the opportunity to work with a group of a group of freshman about one of my favorite topics, parliamentary procedure! Below is a quick overview of my lesson:

Do now: 

I decided to start off with having the students recall meetings they have attend to have them start thinking back on meetings they have attended and if how they felt in the meeting.

Anticipatory set:

I then had the students share their experiences at meetings with other students. As they were sharing I kept interrupting the whole group and throw out random facts about myself. This activity was to make the students feel like they weren't going to be heard in their mini meetings and to get them distracted from what they were talking about. The students got frustrated in their meetings. We all agreed that it was hard to focus one we got cut off and they did were not being heard.

I then introduced some main interests of mine to the group. I wanted them to know who I am and had a way for them to connect with me. 

Self Discovery Learning:

I love self discovery learning. I feel like a topic that kids might find less interesting this makes them want to learn about the topic. I placed the steps to creating and adopting a motion in sheet protectors and had the students place them in order. 

Once they discovered what a main motion was they found the flow of the order. Many students thought second was a "second opinion after a vote." When I was walking around to the small groups I had to ask some questions to get the group to place "obtain a second" in the right order.

Gaining attention from different learners:

The students then drew icons to these steps on the plastic sleeves to help them remember it. I then quickly lectured about main motion and the characteristics of it. 

We watched a great video of how a main motion is presented and passed in order to see the words and how it is played out. 

The students loved creating a dance to the steps of adopting a motion. The dance had to demonstrate what a main motion is, what a second is, what discussion looks like and a voice vote. The students presented their group dances and then I dismissed the class. 

Review:

I was overall very pleased with the engagement the class had in the lesson. I was surprised that the students wanted to learn about parliamentary procedure. These students had never heard of parliamentary procedure before that day. The students wanted to learn about voting and debating after the self discovery part. That activity helped my lecture component of the lesson! 

As an educator I need to plan my questions better. I tried asking students questions to make them think about why we would need parliamentary procedure and I struggled with that.