Connections

Service, Dial Up and Connections

Making connections on the high speed highway when you’re still in a dial-up gear. Thinking about “unplugging”, service learning, my students and my own children there are many things to apply but also equality comes to mind as well.

First when it comes to service learning the children who have the least, even at a young age still want to give and they will bring what they have to help others because sometimes they don’t always make the correlation that they are poor themselves. Service learning is a perfect fit for the way we learn in kindergarten. Experiential learning is the most effective way to understand the why of a subject matter. Ask any kindergartner. They understand by doing, it’s how we learn best. By getting out and doing. I’ve always thought that doing a project locally with kids made more sense than say the Heifer Project , where you raise money and buy a cow for a family or village in another country because the kids can make a connection -personally and to a younger child a cow in a picture means nothing but picking up trash and cleaning up their own playground, or their own neighborhood means something; and we all want to do something that means something even the littlest ones who say “hey teacher look what I did!”

Second I am guilty of being distracted by technology and I know my own children are too. When we get to a city or a hotel where we can have a high-speed connection it is like a deer in the headlights. My son is always wanting to show me the Leggo.com site that he can look at when he goes to The Boys and Girls Club. For us it’s a fascination -“wow! look at that” kind of awe we feel. Six years ago we moved from OKC and we had just gotten high speed (there was no WiFi invented yet) and then we moved out to the middle of here - not no where but close. By the way, when I was in college 20+years ago there were no computers, we used microfilms and the Dewey Decimal System in the library so last year I felt incredibly lost. My students seem more tech savvy than me and teach me things in class but I know they would much rather play with playdough, partly becuase their moms don’t let them at home. I feel that computers are nothing more than busy work with bells and whistles - a worksheet that makes noise. I’d much rather my students be doing something, but I do understand that if I want them to have a chance to be successful they need to be computer literate.

Third - connecting it all. Validating ourselves and our students. By unplugging the technology and plugging in our students and making personal connections with them we not only validate them we validate oursleves as a teacher and a person. We get very busy in our day to day classroom lives and I find myself listening to their stories with only one ear and I can see in their eyes that they know. I know it too but in my head I’m thinking “please hurry we need to move on, we have to move to the next lesson, or I need to go stop Harry before he throws the crayons in the fish tank again so finish your story”. I usually smile and nod, I’d never say those thoughts aloud. But when I take the time to give a child both my ears and eyes and really listen, I see it in their eyes. They know I care and I validate them as a human being. And that is what I think we all want, to feel validated, honored, respected and loved. Talking these two weeks about equality and the lack of it, and watching the movie today reminds me of that today. Our lives have hardships, even in a castle I’m sure Prince William’s new wife has problems, but if we can honor each other and feel worthy even my little Diamond last year, who was blind in one eye, cross eyed in the other, and several learning disabilities, she feels worthy.

I love to read Maya Angelou. Here are some of her teachings I love:

She says we have clouds but there are always rainbows in the clouds.(the people in our life are the rainbows).

And prepare yourself to be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud - be a blessing to somebody - even if they don’t look like you.

Every human being will have clouds in their lives - some darker than others, the thing you can go through the cloud, around the cloud or above it no matter how you go through it: The light is always there. Yours to seek and to find.

These are things I like to read for my own personal life and hopefully impart in my teaching. My students have a rough life, I had a rough childhood, but I know that things happened to me so that I could love my students and help them know they are worthy everyday they are with me and never doubt it, not for a minute.

So to wrap this all up, we need to be in the moment with every moment we have our kids and realize that kids love to be involved more than abstract ideas, computers are distracting but for those who don’t have access maybe keep in mind it is a “new toy” and not an equitable thing for all students and maybe having access time for your students (not me) so it’s not a distraction and take the time to listen and value each person. Be the rainbow in someone’s life.

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."

— Maya Angelou

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

— Maya Angelou

"When you learn, teach, when you get, give."

— Maya Angelou