Fall Update from TEL.A.VISION

Posted on 16. Dec, 2010 by in All Posts, Story of TEL.A.VISION, TEL.A.VISION News

Up With People
In October I visited Washington DC to watch the Up With People show, then followed the cast to Harrisonburg,   Virginia to teach a select group of cast members and the management team about TEL.A.VISION. Up With People is a group of International students that travel the world bringing a message of peace, hope and possibility. They have been doing this since 1965.
In January I will be training their whole cast in TEL.A.VISION and beginning our vision of bringing vision videos to 6th grade students in communities they travel to. In addition to the 80 cast members we hope to work with the 20,000 alumni and have them bring TEL.A.VISION  to their communities.

Spark.A.Vision
In November I participated in the Big Tent Conference in Houston. We created a new product called Spark.A.Vision. It is a combination of Dr. Peter Benson’s work on Sparks and TEL.A.VISION. Dr. Benson’s research has shown that what every young person needs for a successful upbringing is to find his/her spark in life and have three adults support them. TEL.A.VISION  is a way to help a young person identify their spark and share it with the world. We had a fabulous response in Houston and look forward to collaborating to bring this to the world. W believe this work could be enhanced by proposed regulations to begin Career and College Preparedness with students in sixth grade.
Here is a video where students talk about their experience creating Spark.A.Vision videos.

TIES Conference
In December Bob Dockendorf, Gwen Toppe and I presented at the TIES Conference. Bob is the Principal of Big Lake High School. This fall Big Lake held “Transition Day” for all ninth graders on the first day of school. Every ninth grader began a TEL.A.VISION  video on that day. Teachers created videos that they shared with the students. They talked to the students about the importance of having a vision for their lives. At the conference Bob shared stories of the difference the program has made with individual students and initial results from the vision videos. These results included a 2.6% increase in attendance and a 30% drop in the number of write ups for disciplinary problems.

Foundation Grants
This fall we received a Community Grant from the Best Buy Foundation to fund expansion of TEL.A.VISION in Twin Cities Schools. In 2011 we will be funding research on TEL.A.VISION’s effectiveness and a number of pilot programs for At Risk youth. With a grant from the Rothmann Family Foundation we have funded programs including the use of TEL.A.VISION by youth at the Mercy Center in Bangkok, http://www.mercycentre.org. Mercy Center is a hospital for children with AIDS. They will be creating vision videos to send to their sponsors.
If you know of any foundations or organizations you think would be interested in helping fund TEL.A.VISION please let us know.

Quotes from Nebraska High School Students
This fall we received testimonials from High School Students in Nebraska who had completed vision videos. In this blog post we share some of the quotes. Here is one of our favorites: “Thank you soooo much I was really having a tough time in my life and wasnt really paying attention to anything. I drank and I was even considering joining a gang but now this has really just set me back an my path and I can actually see wer im going so thank you.”

Big News From TEL.A.VISION

Posted on 05. Jun, 2009 by in All Posts, Media, Social Media and Vision, Supporters, TEL.A.VISION Stories, Web 2.0

5th Graders at Clear Springs Elementary on Parents Night

5th Graders at Clear Springs Elementary on Parents Night

The BIG news is that TEL.A.VISION  is becoming a non profit. Actually, it has always been a not for profit but we are just making it official. This will allow us to seek funds from foundations and individuals. I know that we will probably be rejected 10 times before we find someone willing to help fund us so if you know any organization or individual willing to be one of the first to talk to us let us know.

It’s hard to believe we launched only 8 months ago. In that time our partner Haberman has done a great job of getting us in all of the local press as well as the Christian Science Monitor. We had a successful TEL.A.VISION Day with a 24 hour broadcast of TEL.A.VISION videos on the Internet ( Thank you Steve). In May we did our first NYC press tour and from that will be covered in a 4 page spread in District Administration (Thank you Sue), a feature in Family Circle and have been told we will be in Scholastic and Time For Kids.

We have some exciting partnerships we are  working on.

  1. Having 6th, 9th and 12th graders in the Minneapolis Schools create vision videos as part of graduation requirements,
  2. Working with TIES Education,
  3. Partnering with Youth Services of America to create Service Learning videos,
  4. Working with The Discipline of Peace and Culture of Peace Initiative to create Peace videos,
  5. Discussions with SEARCH Institute and Templeton Press on creating a Vision Curriculum with Dr. Benson’s New book “Vision“
  6. An invitation to visit the staff of the Fetzer Institute.

While all of this holds great potential the most rewarding work has been to see the difference TEL.A.VISION  is having on youth. Three projects stand out.

  1. Working with the Divas of North Minneapolis. The Star Tribune did a nice article on them.
  2. Spending a day at Angelo Patri Middle School in the Bronx with 18 young people creating a new vision for their school ( The video is below). Their Vide Principal cried when she say it.
  3. Parent night at a Clear Springs Elementary in Minnetonka, where 75 people showed up to view amazing videos created by 5th graders .

We’ve started a new contest called “100 words for $100“. Tell us how you have used TEL.A.VISION and win a chance for $100.

Thank you all for your support of TEL.A.VISION. If you would like to receive regular updates on TEL.A.VISION sign up in the upper right hand corner.


Vision – Awakening Your Potential to Create a Better World

Posted on 27. May, 2009 by in All Posts, Power of Vision

vision-cover-finalIf you’ve found your way to the TEL.A.VISION blog you must be interested in vision. Our friend, Dr. Peter Benson, from the SEARCH Institute has just written a book called “Vision – Awakening Your Potential to Create a Better World”. It is available here from the Templeton Press.

I’ve read the book and believe it is the perfect compliment to creating a vision video. Our hope is to create a curriculum on vision that would include reading the book and creating a TEL.A.VISION video.

Here are the publishers comments from the book’s order page:
According to Peter L. Benson, the capacity to generate vision is among life’s most beautiful and unheralded gifts. To him, a vision is more than just a goal, more than just a dream of what could be—it is a summons, a pull towards the future, an inspired call to make real that which should be. In Vision: Awakening Your Potential to Create a Better World Benson takes readers on an uplifting exploration of this powerful concept.

Once I started the book I couldn’t put it down. I’m sure you will enjoy it also.