- Several students in both groups (3rd/4th grade in the morning and 1st/2nd grade in the afternoon) who are very beginners with English took risks this week by raising their hands to answer questions in whole group.

- We’ve been working on subtraction this week and I overheard one of my boys, who struggles with school, talking to himself: “Okay, I need to count backward…11-4…put 11 in my head…11, 10, 9, 8, 7.”

- M.O., who typically sits for a solid two hours doing absolutely no work – truly, I’ve never met a child like this – discovered he could do a subtraction assignment the other day.  He’d cross the little pictures out then count what was left and yell, “Teacher, 5!  Right?  5!”  I’d give him a thumbs up then he’d repeat the process for the next one, and so he yelled out and I thumbed-up all the way through the assignment.

- I always start my small groups out with a warm-up of counting around the table.  Yesterday, just as one group sat down, I was interrupted by another group working on a math game on the floor.  I said, “Just a minute,” to the group at the table and went to address the issue on the floor.  When I came back, the group had already started counting around the table.

- I often say “good job” to my kids, and I’ve been overhearing them saying it to each other when they notice each other doing something well.

- Everyday I have a different door holder for the day.  Usually a handful of kids will say “thank you” to him or her as they walk through.  The other day I pointed out how nice it was that someone had said thank you to the door holder.  Since then every child says thank you to the door holder.

- This week I introduced journals to my homeroom (3rd/4th).  They spent a couple days writing about their families then we had a circle sharing time this afternoon for a few kids to read what they had written.  I allowed other kids to ask questions.  One girl had written about her brother giving her $100 for Christmas.  A boy asked, “If your brother give you $100, how many money he have left?”  We’ve been working on subtraction in math and using the vocabulary “how many” and “are left”.  I loved that this boy made the connection and was using it in a real-life situation.

I continue to be so grateful for this job and these kids.  After last year, I didn’t think I could find joy in teaching, but these moments truly bring me joy.

Because these kids actually know how to play.

In my previous five years of recess duties, there would be the handful of kids who ran around with a select group of friends playing tag or racing or jumping rope or playing soccer (usually the Hispanic kids).  Many of the kids would complain about having to walk or run.  Many would hover around me unsure of what to do.  Lots of kids would fight.  Lots of tattling would occur.  Kids would sit by themselves or walk by themselves.  If a kid scraped his knee, he’d be afraid to play again.  Empty fields were the worst recess venues.  Kids would stare at me blankly or ask what they could do.  I’d yell, “Go play!”  They would wander aimlessly across the field.  On those empty field days, I’d organize games of Mother May I, Red Light/Green Light, and What’s the Time Mr. Fox? hoping that they’d take initiative to organize themselves on the days I didn’t organize them.  They never did.

My previous classes always had obese children in them.  (In my class of fourth graders last year, half were obese.)  They could talk endlessly of the video games they were mastering at home, and the horror movies they watched with their older brothers and sisters and parents.  One year, on a Friday, I told a group of first graders that they had homework for the weekend.  I said, “You need to get outside this weekend.  Go to the park.  Go for a walk.  Play tag.  Ride your bike.”  One girl said, “Can you write that down for me so I don’t forget?”

from nowpublic.com

Until now I thought play was a forgotten art among children.  Then I started teaching refugee kids and took them outside for recess.  No one sits.  No one fights.  Every child runs.  Every single one of them.  They play hard.  The big kids play with the little kids, and the girls play with the boys, and the girls play with the girls without being catty.  The groups are big and fluid, and everyone is included.  The Iraqis yell Arabic to each other.  The Burmese yell in their various dialects.  And across the cultural divides, they holler at each other in their limited English.  There’s always the group playing some kind of tag.  Then there’s the group doing gymnastics.  Some of the big boys can do front flips and back flips.  The little kids practice their headstands and are learning cartwheels.  Sometimes they race.  Sometimes one of the Iraqi boys brings an American football, and they organize a game.  The girls like to swing and slide and build things in the sand.  Some of the little girls pick clovers and dandelions and bring them to me.

I love watching them play!  But it makes me sad too because one day they will be mainstreamed into a regular classroom and start learning how to be “American.”.  I fear they will stop playing.  I fear that as they assimilate into this culture that they’ll stop going outside and play more video games and watch more movies.  They’ll stop including everyone and start excluding.  The girls will start being mean, and the boys will be too cool and tough to do their gymnastics or let the girls play with them.  But maybe they will hold onto play.  Maybe they’ll realize it’s more fun.  Maybe their peers will learn from them.

In the evenings when I leave school, there are always groups of Asian adults utilizing the school fields for games of soccer.  Older men walk the dirt path that weaves around the field and playgrounds.  Last night when I left, in addition to the athletes, there was a small group of Asian teenagers in skinny jeans and spiked hair smoking cigarettes in the parking lot.  My kids will have choices to make in their new culture.  They can go either way.  I pray they continue to play.

Click HERE for more thoughts on short-term missions.

That is a giant roll of bologna.  Bright pink and easy to slice through, although sometimes is makes you want to gag a little because there’s just so much of it.  On mornings that I ran workshops (for research) in schools, I would wake up early to walk down to the bakery on the corner with my plastic bags and exact change and buy however many rolls I needed for the day.  Then I’d return home to slice bologna, cut rolls, butter them, and make bologna sandwiches for the students.  I’d also mix up bottles of a Kool-Aid type drink.

The funnier part is that usually by the time the workshops were over, I was pretty hungry for a bologna sandwich and bright purple juice!

This photo makes me laugh because it shows everyone searching in the rough for lost balls.