This afternoon, like most teachers, I was running off my pacing. It didn't really matter beacuse only twelve children graced my presence. Attendance has been awful in my class after Christmas break. I tell you I thought working at an inner city school meant basically 100% attendance. Well, that is something I got completely wrong. I tell you, if there is a hint of bad weather those parents refuse to walk the long trek (no more than 4
blocks for most). I have really had to let that go. Yet another shock treatment for the adorably naive.Just a side note, I actually had a parent whose kids had been out for 2 days tell me that she sent the kid to school just to get him out of the house. Picture a woman with big gold hoop earing and her hair up in humongous rollers complete with a net protective cap. (no judgments just observations) He didn't come back for the next 2 days after that hmmmm. By the way, same parent
that had her kids miss 2 days in January and when we asked where they had been, he said with a straight face "Oh yeah, my mom said we had to go stay with grandma to get out of her hair. I wanted to respond, "no joke kid, with those rollers, I get it buddy" but I restrained. Just kidding.Believe me, you have to become immune to alot out there in the boogie down Bronx. Keep up with the blog because now that I am in a comfortable place in my teaching, I just have to share some stories. Now to what I really wanted to blog about...
This afternoon, I taught my lesson on studying characters in books to hold comprehension. Since February is Black History Month, I started by reading the wonderful book "Martins big Words". The kids had such a great conversation, and I had never seen them so into a read aloud. Something about his whole story fascinated them. After a great discussion, they had to go back and fill out a character report on Martin. I added some pictures of the little men in my class. I couldn't resist, it completely made my day. Below will be a cheat sheet because if you are not a young person teacher you might not be able to read their developing writing.
The writing at the very top left. The students wrote on the top that "he (Martin Luther King) helped the garbage men" and that if he ever met him they would "talk about love."
The writing across on the left says "they didnt ride buses (Montgomery bus boycott) and then he wrote about him at the bottom "I will keep him in my best heart".
The next one on the left says "Martin Luther King Jr, Courage, He uses big words BRAVE." And on the bottom he wrote "when I grow up I am going to be him".
The final piece says much of the same as the one above "He uses big words". And he said that he would tell him "I want to grow up just like you."
Three of the four where young black americans and I hope they take Doctor King away from this into their lives and picture him as goal and not fifty cent and bling bling. This brought me back to my teaching soul. I couldn't stop smiling. I too have a dream...
