Wednesday posted on Thursday

Jan. 25

Today is actually Thursday, January 26th but because of how busy I was yesterday I didn't get to posting until now. I did write in my iPhone yesterday on the subway though so here is the text from yesterday:

Today I made a girl cry. Yep. It happened. I made a girl cry. One of my jobs in the class is to check their homework while they are at lunch. They are required to read 30 minutes every night and have their parent sign off that they read in their reading log. Also, their parents are supposed to sign their homework calendar every night as well. Well, this one student had everything else completed except for her signatures. The students have all week to get the homework done late so I just told her to have her mom, dad, or whoever is home with her when she reads to sign all of them next time so she can get the points back that she missed. I walked away and continued to check all the other students homework. Next thing I knew my host teacher *Mrs. J was asking *C what was the matter. I looked over and she is wiping away tears. My heart broke in a million pieces and I ran right over. She was explaining that she misses her Mom. Mrs. J asked what happened that brought these feelings up and I immediately knew. I told her I was just checking her homework and asked C if it she started to think about her mom because she didn't sign her homework. She said yes, and that she only sees her mom once a week because she is so busy working. Obviously we gave her credit and made an exception that she doesn't have to get her homework and reading log signed as long as she records her reading on her own. I felt like a failure.

*No names are being used when mentioning my school. You understand.

After working today and the experience I had as well as all the observations I've made over the past couple weeks I can't help but stop and think about how wonderful of a life I have been privileged to live. I have had many opportunities that some people never have the chance to experience. Today my host teacher asked me to hop on Google and find something that has happened on January 25th in history, or a famous person's birthday that we can have a discussion on in our read aloud. I found that on January 25, 1924 the first winter Olympics began. As she was teaching them about the Olympics and reading about different sports involved in the winter Olympics I started to think about when I experienced the Olympics. When the Olympics were in Salt Lake City in 2002 I was in the seventh grade. We had a month off of school so that the facilities could be used for athletes and different events. It seemed as if Park City alone hosted half if not more than half of all of the events. I had a friend from class be the "test dummy" for the ski jumping hill. Another close friend was an ice skater in the opening ceremony. The entire town was taken over by people from all over the world and I was free to roam Main Street and take in the energy and excitement that is indescribable with the Olympics coming to your hometown. After we read the story we were looking where the Scandinavian countries were. As we were looking at the globe a student pointed to Paris and said she wants to go there. Another wonderful memory I have been fortunate to have is the memory of traveling to Europe, twice. I can't help but almost feel guilty thinking about all the wonderful things I have seen and been able to do in my life until I thought about what I am doing with my life now. I am a teacher, well almost. I can use all of these amazing experiences to help teach my students. I can tell them what it looks like to have the entire world come to your town for the Olympics. I can explain the streets of Paris and describe the nutella crepes I ate in London. I can share experiences of my time in Italy seeing the leaning tower of Pisa, the vatican, the colosseum, and teach them about the Palio in Siena that my contrada won! Students look to teachers for answers and we are here to teach. I am just thankful I have had such a blessed life and had so many great experiences that I can now share and use to improve my lessons. Also, the students I am teaching have had just as many unique experience as I have had. One student was born in Serbia, another in the Dominican Republic. New York City is SO diverse and I am just eating it up! I feel like I have a lot to teach the students and they have just as much to teach me. Having the little girl cry was just a reminder to me that everyone has different backgrounds and I need to be sensitive and aware of that.