Eventful Day

            I am currently at the SLC (MLC) so that I can have internet to post. I have not had internet at home for the past two days. No good…

Second day of Lit Circle and it went pretty great. We didn’t get to finish reading the chapter we are on because the kids kept making so many great connections, predictions, and inferences. I had sticky notes in my book to remind me to bring up certain topics or make certain worldly connections, but I didn’t even get to use half of them…because they were bringing up these topics and issues themselves!

Example one:  I had written a note to myself to bring up the issue of population control in China as it relates to the novel we are reading. Two pages before I was going to do that, we inferred there must be some kind of rule that parents can only have a certain amount of kids. At that moment, one of the students said something along the lines of, “Isn’t it like in China where parents can only have a certain amount of kids and they have to pay for or get rid of any other kids they have?” To say the least, I was pretty darn excited to hear that student bring it up instead of me.

          Example two:  A wonderful text-to-world, and possibly text-to-self, connection. He brought up the topic of government assistance, but in other words.  He was thinking that maybe, in the book, the government was limiting the number of children per family because the government didn’t want to have to give families extra money because they had a lot of kids. Another student then asked if that was like “when parents get money back from the government a couple of weeks after new year (assistance and/or tax returns). It’s amazing to see what knowledge of such mature matters these kids have that I certainly did not have a clue about when I was that age.

          I could go on about lit circle, but I won’t. Another great part of our day was when the DARE officer came. I could tell the kids really look up to him, and I believe he has the kind of personality and position in the community to have a very positive effect on them.

         The day ended with a professional learning staff meeting on “cultural awareness.” I have had lots of lessons on cultural awareness at UGA and learned so many things. I was a little weary at first because I thought I would be hearing the same things one more time. However, the discussion leader brought up a couple of perspectives and issues that I had never heard of or thought about. We got to discuss things in small groups so it was nice to get to somewhat participate in the meeting.