brown paper packages
Because I tend to forget the little things, the happy random moments and comments, I figure I should write some of them down.
In Thursday's ESL class, I had my students listen to a little presentation on St. Patrick's Day to try to explain the green-tinted craziness that was about to take over Boston and its environs. Somehow this led to a discussion on corned beef recipes, and before I knew it one of the ladies offered to bring in her corned beef to Monday's class and someone else said she'd bring rice, and after that it was all a chorus of flan and cake and who knows what else. So now we have ourselves a little party planned. :)
On Friday I had a girl get up out of her seat during Physics class to show me her electronic tuner (for orchestra) and ask me something about it, but then she stopped half way up to me because she got it. She sat back down saying she finally understood how the thing worked, and why tuning instruments worked and she was just beaming. Then someone else said, "Isn't it great when that happens?", and I realized that most of the time I have no clue what's going on in those teenage minds and I have to acknowledge that sometimes they're bored and tuned out but sometimes they're having their own transformative moment and for the most part I'll never know. And it's all fine. It's just my job to give them those opportunities.
Twenty minutes later, as if The Universe felt I needed the lesson reinforced, a girl who spends most of her time with her head on her desk (but looking at me) stopped by on her way out the door to tell me she's thinking she may want to do physics in college and wants to talk about whether she could combine that with chemistry and what kind of jobs she could get. The fact that she's a first generation immigrant from the DR just makes it sweeter, and tied up in string.
In Thursday's ESL class, I had my students listen to a little presentation on St. Patrick's Day to try to explain the green-tinted craziness that was about to take over Boston and its environs. Somehow this led to a discussion on corned beef recipes, and before I knew it one of the ladies offered to bring in her corned beef to Monday's class and someone else said she'd bring rice, and after that it was all a chorus of flan and cake and who knows what else. So now we have ourselves a little party planned. :)
On Friday I had a girl get up out of her seat during Physics class to show me her electronic tuner (for orchestra) and ask me something about it, but then she stopped half way up to me because she got it. She sat back down saying she finally understood how the thing worked, and why tuning instruments worked and she was just beaming. Then someone else said, "Isn't it great when that happens?", and I realized that most of the time I have no clue what's going on in those teenage minds and I have to acknowledge that sometimes they're bored and tuned out but sometimes they're having their own transformative moment and for the most part I'll never know. And it's all fine. It's just my job to give them those opportunities.
Twenty minutes later, as if The Universe felt I needed the lesson reinforced, a girl who spends most of her time with her head on her desk (but looking at me) stopped by on her way out the door to tell me she's thinking she may want to do physics in college and wants to talk about whether she could combine that with chemistry and what kind of jobs she could get. The fact that she's a first generation immigrant from the DR just makes it sweeter, and tied up in string.