Friday, November 30, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Stone Soup
This week we're reading Stone Soup. During our discussion after the first reading, I asked about what happened with the stone in the soup. One of my girls said, "It melted."
Friday, November 23, 2012
Confession Time
So I've slacked a little bit on the whole 'blog every day' thing.
We drove out to see my sweet Grandma for her 95th birthday and then we had Thanksgiving, and then I ate too much, and then I slept in, and then I chose to spend my writing time reorganizing my boards on Pintrest...you know, just procrastinating in general.
But here I am, as promised, and I today I have to write about last Sunday. A few posts ago I told you that my church decided to adopt the families of my classroom a community service for Thanksgiving. Last Sunday was the day church members met at my school, gathered all the donated items, then delivered them to my students' homes.
It was wonderful; as you could imagine.
I also forgot to take pictures. Not one. I'm a little upset about that.
But, again, it was fabulous.
Before the church folks delivered all the goodies, the pastor said a prayer in my classroom (Lord knows that room needs all the blessing folks want to dish out) and then he opened it up for questions. (Since only two of us from the church spoke Spanish in the group and all 18 families are Spanish-speakers, we were all a little curious about how the whole thing was going to play out.) One of the church members asked, "When we're speaking to the family, how do we let them know the bag of groceries is for the child in your class?"
This was an interesting question for me to hear. I understood why the person was asking, because typically there are two or three families living under one roof (with many children) and our Thanksgiving bags included one child-size sleeping bag (for the child in my class).
However, I was immediately reminded of the large gap between middle-class thinking and poverty thinking.
I'm realizing that the world my students live in, holds very few boundaries of 'yours and mine'. Its family and community, all the time. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. I have a feeling if you or I were in their shoes, we'd do the same. Can you imagine: A loved one beside you has nothing and you have something, do you keep it all to yourself or do you share? I believe in middle-class America we answer that question with, "Well, it depends on what we're talking about. Are we talking about the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer or...."
I think its hard for those of us in the middle-class America to even wrap our brains around 'having nothing'. However, what if I posed this situation/question, "You are a single mom, you only have one toothbrush (and you won't get paid/can't buy one for another two weeks), what would you do? Tell your child he can't brush his teeth for the rest of the month? Stop brushing your own teeth until the end of the month? Or do you share?"
This idea of community and sharing flows into the classroom. When your teacher gives you a math worksheet and you don't know how to fill in the blanks, what do you do? (Most adults in middle-class America would say, "Think about it - try your best." "Ask the teacher for help" etc.) But my students turn to their peers (i.e. they copy their neighbor's paper). Technically, this IS a problem solving strategy, but it's one that most teachers do not advocate. In the life of a child who's living in poverty, they see the situation differently. They see the situation as, "My friend understands this assignment, he has knowledge. I do not have this knowledge, so he should share his knowledge with me. Then when a time comes that I have knowledge and he doesn't, then it will be my turn to share, to lead my peers." In fact, keeping something to yourself (not sharing your knowledge/answers to an assignment), could be viewed as being selfish and not lifting up your community members; maybe even keeping them down.
So, of course, my students and their families do things like share toothbrushes, take a little less at dinner so everyone can eat, and squeeze together in a sleeping bag - so less people are cold as they sleep on the floor. They try to copy one another's papers and they often say the same answers as their peers during class discussions.
All this to say that when one person gives a grocery sack full of items to one child in my class, that one person is really uplifting an entire family (or in our case, with 18 families) a good portion of the community. One act of giving goes a long, long way.
Furthermore, when someone in my class is given a hand-me-down pair of boots or a sack of rice, they are not simply having their physical needs met. Instead, they are given a brain pass. Its a pass to stop feeling the stress of wondering if you will be cold as you walk to school or if there will be food at home. That precious brain space that has been occupied by mere survival stress in the past, can now be used for learning.
What a beautiful thing.
We drove out to see my sweet Grandma for her 95th birthday and then we had Thanksgiving, and then I ate too much, and then I slept in, and then I chose to spend my writing time reorganizing my boards on Pintrest...you know, just procrastinating in general.
But here I am, as promised, and I today I have to write about last Sunday. A few posts ago I told you that my church decided to adopt the families of my classroom a community service for Thanksgiving. Last Sunday was the day church members met at my school, gathered all the donated items, then delivered them to my students' homes.
It was wonderful; as you could imagine.
I also forgot to take pictures. Not one. I'm a little upset about that.
But, again, it was fabulous.
Before the church folks delivered all the goodies, the pastor said a prayer in my classroom (Lord knows that room needs all the blessing folks want to dish out) and then he opened it up for questions. (Since only two of us from the church spoke Spanish in the group and all 18 families are Spanish-speakers, we were all a little curious about how the whole thing was going to play out.) One of the church members asked, "When we're speaking to the family, how do we let them know the bag of groceries is for the child in your class?"
This was an interesting question for me to hear. I understood why the person was asking, because typically there are two or three families living under one roof (with many children) and our Thanksgiving bags included one child-size sleeping bag (for the child in my class).
However, I was immediately reminded of the large gap between middle-class thinking and poverty thinking.
I'm realizing that the world my students live in, holds very few boundaries of 'yours and mine'. Its family and community, all the time. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. I have a feeling if you or I were in their shoes, we'd do the same. Can you imagine: A loved one beside you has nothing and you have something, do you keep it all to yourself or do you share? I believe in middle-class America we answer that question with, "Well, it depends on what we're talking about. Are we talking about the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer or...."
I think its hard for those of us in the middle-class America to even wrap our brains around 'having nothing'. However, what if I posed this situation/question, "You are a single mom, you only have one toothbrush (and you won't get paid/can't buy one for another two weeks), what would you do? Tell your child he can't brush his teeth for the rest of the month? Stop brushing your own teeth until the end of the month? Or do you share?"
This idea of community and sharing flows into the classroom. When your teacher gives you a math worksheet and you don't know how to fill in the blanks, what do you do? (Most adults in middle-class America would say, "Think about it - try your best." "Ask the teacher for help" etc.) But my students turn to their peers (i.e. they copy their neighbor's paper). Technically, this IS a problem solving strategy, but it's one that most teachers do not advocate. In the life of a child who's living in poverty, they see the situation differently. They see the situation as, "My friend understands this assignment, he has knowledge. I do not have this knowledge, so he should share his knowledge with me. Then when a time comes that I have knowledge and he doesn't, then it will be my turn to share, to lead my peers." In fact, keeping something to yourself (not sharing your knowledge/answers to an assignment), could be viewed as being selfish and not lifting up your community members; maybe even keeping them down.
So, of course, my students and their families do things like share toothbrushes, take a little less at dinner so everyone can eat, and squeeze together in a sleeping bag - so less people are cold as they sleep on the floor. They try to copy one another's papers and they often say the same answers as their peers during class discussions.
All this to say that when one person gives a grocery sack full of items to one child in my class, that one person is really uplifting an entire family (or in our case, with 18 families) a good portion of the community. One act of giving goes a long, long way.
Furthermore, when someone in my class is given a hand-me-down pair of boots or a sack of rice, they are not simply having their physical needs met. Instead, they are given a brain pass. Its a pass to stop feeling the stress of wondering if you will be cold as you walk to school or if there will be food at home. That precious brain space that has been occupied by mere survival stress in the past, can now be used for learning.
What a beautiful thing.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Heading Out
Heading out of town today - no time to write. We're going to Grandma's to celebrate her 95th birthday.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Earn a Desk
A friend sent me this email today:
"Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school,
with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.
When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.
'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?'
She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'
They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'
'No,' she said.
'Maybe it's our behavior.'
She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'
And so, they came and went, the first period, second
period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.
By early afternoon television news crews had started
gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.
The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or
she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'
At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.
Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk
in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned..
Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you
could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'
By the way, this is a true story. And this teacher was awarded Teacher of the Year for the state of Arkansas in 2006.
Please consider passing this along so others won't forget either that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by U. S. Veterans. Always remember them and the rights they have won for us.
Blessings abound in the USA!"
"Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school,
with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.
When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.
'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?'
She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'
They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'
'No,' she said.
'Maybe it's our behavior.'
She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'
And so, they came and went, the first period, second
period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.
By early afternoon television news crews had started
gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.
The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or
she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'
At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.
Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk
in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned..
Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you
could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'
By the way, this is a true story. And this teacher was awarded Teacher of the Year for the state of Arkansas in 2006.
Please consider passing this along so others won't forget either that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by U. S. Veterans. Always remember them and the rights they have won for us.
Blessings abound in the USA!"
Here's Something I've Learned
Dear Friends,
Here's something I've learned from being at my school:
When parents are consumed with worry about being deported, money for rent and food to eat, they do not have the brain space left to remember their child's teacher's name.
At the beginning of the year, I took a bit of offense that everyone simply yelled at me "Teacher! Teacher!" (Before this time, I had only been addressed like that by children, during the first 3 days of school.)
But I'm starting to understand the parents (just a tiny but) more each with each week and that helps.
With love,
Teacher
Here's something I've learned from being at my school:
When parents are consumed with worry about being deported, money for rent and food to eat, they do not have the brain space left to remember their child's teacher's name.
At the beginning of the year, I took a bit of offense that everyone simply yelled at me "Teacher! Teacher!" (Before this time, I had only been addressed like that by children, during the first 3 days of school.)
But I'm starting to understand the parents (just a tiny but) more each with each week and that helps.
With love,
Teacher
Friday, November 16, 2012
Freaky Friday
Today was just weird.
Anyone else?
Within 30 minutes of the day, one of my students punched another in the face and gave him a bloody nose.
We had an assembly where my principal kissed a frog. (This was her promise if the school reached their fundraising goal. It was the fattest frog I have EVER seen.)
Another child yelled "SHIT!" in the lunch line, was sent to the office, then lied about why he was sent there.
When I was in the office later (minding my own beeswax, waiting on the secretary, who was alone, answering phones, while caring for two kids in the clinic), a second grade boy came running in yelling, "B---- is chasing me and he won't quit!" Then, B---- ran in and the two started physically fighting right there in front of me! Of course, no one else was there because my principal and AP were out delivering frozen cookie dough (which arrived late because the truck driver was in a fatal accident). So I got in the middle of the fist fight and held onto B--- (who just kept on swing'n), and I told the other child to go to class and he ran out. I finally got the kid to calm down and sit and wait for the principal.
What's going on with the world today?!
Here's my poor principal. She's really quite fab.
Anyone else?
Within 30 minutes of the day, one of my students punched another in the face and gave him a bloody nose.
We had an assembly where my principal kissed a frog. (This was her promise if the school reached their fundraising goal. It was the fattest frog I have EVER seen.)
Another child yelled "SHIT!" in the lunch line, was sent to the office, then lied about why he was sent there.
When I was in the office later (minding my own beeswax, waiting on the secretary, who was alone, answering phones, while caring for two kids in the clinic), a second grade boy came running in yelling, "B---- is chasing me and he won't quit!" Then, B---- ran in and the two started physically fighting right there in front of me! Of course, no one else was there because my principal and AP were out delivering frozen cookie dough (which arrived late because the truck driver was in a fatal accident). So I got in the middle of the fist fight and held onto B--- (who just kept on swing'n), and I told the other child to go to class and he ran out. I finally got the kid to calm down and sit and wait for the principal.
What's going on with the world today?!
Here's my poor principal. She's really quite fab.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)