Inauguration Reflections
It was an amazing, historic day. I am unabashedly proud to be an American today on a day when America's promise and potential were renewed. Three quick reflections:
1. A lot of my friends took the trek down to D.C. for the inauguration. I can't begin to imagine the feeling of listening President Obama take the oath and give his speech among 2 million strong on the mall. That said, there's nowhere else I'd rather have been, nor a more special location I can think of, than with my students.
2. My school isn't perfect, but it has very good intentions and tries very hard to fulfill them. Today we managed to set up three different locations for the lower, middle and upper grades to view the inauguration using three SMARTboards. Given the logistical challenges (preps, lunches, bandwidth, etc.) I was very impressed and proud that my school managed to pull this off.
3. I wish I had more time last week to prepare my kids for today. While there was a palpable excitement throughout the school, it was clear that much of the real, historical significance was lost on the students. They clapped and cheered at pretty much all the appropriate moments, but when it was time for the important parts, they were just plain bored. As one student said to me when Barack began his inaugural address, "These words is for lawyers." I myself was pretty moved, but I can imagine how much of the language could be lost on 1,000 K-5 students, most of whom are a couple of grades behind in reading and writing.
Challenges in the classroom aside (more on this at another time), a pretty good day. Bad day as a teacher, but a great day as an American.
1. A lot of my friends took the trek down to D.C. for the inauguration. I can't begin to imagine the feeling of listening President Obama take the oath and give his speech among 2 million strong on the mall. That said, there's nowhere else I'd rather have been, nor a more special location I can think of, than with my students.
2. My school isn't perfect, but it has very good intentions and tries very hard to fulfill them. Today we managed to set up three different locations for the lower, middle and upper grades to view the inauguration using three SMARTboards. Given the logistical challenges (preps, lunches, bandwidth, etc.) I was very impressed and proud that my school managed to pull this off.
3. I wish I had more time last week to prepare my kids for today. While there was a palpable excitement throughout the school, it was clear that much of the real, historical significance was lost on the students. They clapped and cheered at pretty much all the appropriate moments, but when it was time for the important parts, they were just plain bored. As one student said to me when Barack began his inaugural address, "These words is for lawyers." I myself was pretty moved, but I can imagine how much of the language could be lost on 1,000 K-5 students, most of whom are a couple of grades behind in reading and writing.
Challenges in the classroom aside (more on this at another time), a pretty good day. Bad day as a teacher, but a great day as an American.
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