I finally feel like I know my kids. How did this happen? When did it click?
Well, I think it was mainly due to a letter writing activity I did with my 9th graders. I traveled to New York last week and before I left I taught them some letter writing techniques. This real world skill (penmanship/thank-you note writing) has gotten me countless job opportunities and allowed me to stay in touch with people of all ages. So I want my kids to be able to interview for a job and write a thank you note to the employer that further shows that they are the ideal candidate. To begin, they each had to write a note to me about their Thanksgiving traditions, their plans for the upcoming weekend, and one (school-appropriate) question for me. (This was just to see what kind of skills they were starting with). After receiving 120 personalized notes I took 12 hours (during the plane rides) to write back to each and every one of them. Am I insane? I may be. Scratch that, I definitely am, but it is so important to make these one on one connections with each student, and in class only half of them really step out of their shell. So this activity was my attempt to get to know ALL of them.
When I came back in after the weekend and they saw my pile of 120 notes, each with a name on the front, they were shocked. One of my students asked, "you wrote back to us?", and I replied, "of course I did. You wrote to me, so I wrote back!". He told me later that he has written countless "letters" to teachers before and he has never had a single one respond. He was excited, to say the least!
Now I have a few kids come chat with me after school almost everyday. A few have come out to me, a few have told me their life story: step-dads with alcoholism, 18 year old sisters with children, mothers who have stopped coming home. It is often hard to listen, but they need and deserve my advice and consoling. I never baby them. All of my responses are action oriented: what decisions can they make to create a happier or more productive tomorrow? With these moments I am reminded of why I do eventually want to go into counseling. Though I am considering staying in Vegas for 4 years in order to see my freshmen graduate in 2017!
Whenever I get notes like these I smile. I have one student who writes fan-fiction based on the show "Merlin" and though at first was tentative, now insists that I read the "installments" and give him feedback. He is an excellent student and a budding young writer. At first he was silent in my class, but has begun speaking up more and more. One day I hope to read his novel and say "Wow, I was his FIRST editor!".
Should I let my kids curse? This is the question I struggled with as I began reading "Of Mice and Men" before teaching it to my 9th graders. After much contemplation I realized that I was mostly worried about my kids being respectful and courteous, and not necessarily about the actual words. So I came up with a plan. I would pose the following question in class, we would discuss, and take a vote: Is it better to remove and replace bad words in a text or to read them as they are though they may be offensive to some?
Each of my 4th, 5th, and 6th period classes had this debate. And their responses astounded me. They came up with all the points I had already reviewed: the reader loses the tone and mood of the text if they take out words, we need to be mature and realize the dialect of the book reflects the time period and has historical context, we are adults and can read words we would not actually say because we are quoting directly from the book. With these reasons, each class decided overwhelmingly to read the words directly from the text. I told them that this decision was theirs to make and I think they appreciated that element of control, and that I was treating them as agents of their own education. The first time the word "nigger" appeared there was a bit of awkward tension but they were very mature and read the text as written. Of course if individuals felt uncomfortable they did NOT, by any means, have to read. The decision was really ALLOWING for those that desired, to read the text verbatim. I still stand by my decision and can see my students growing to love this controversial text.
In personal news, (on the right) I finally got a Nevada license plate, and immediately put my "Cimarron Memorial Spartan Football" frame on it! And on the left side you'll see me sporting a very special sweater that belonged to my grandmother, the librarian!Cheers,
Danielle
