Student story of the day: Today we celebrated the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in third grade, and I can promise you that I am the one who had the most take-away from this lesson. We begun our lesson by my asking the students who had brown skin to take a seat on the floor in the back of the classroom. I continued with my lesson and didnt say a word. My students that were closer to me were beginning to get aggravated with me and shared that this behavior was uncharacteristic of who I was as a teacher. Student 1: Miss Kersey, why are you being so mean? I am going to go and sit with them. They are my friends. Me: No sir you will not, they will be sitting alone today. You may sit back down. Student 2: (A student in the back of the room) Why are you doing this? I am no different than you. My skin is brown, but my family adopted me and their skin is white. They like me for ME Miss Kersey. I continued on without saying anything. Student 3: Miss Kersey I am not going to let you teach this way. Im sorry but you are failing as a teacher right now. You try and teach us how to be good human beings and to have good character and then you do this? No, not cool. Student 4 and 5: (Students in the back of the room) If you arent going to teach us, then we are leaving. We decided that there is no reason for us to sit here. So you choose. You can teach us or we are out of here. Me: Both speechless and happy at the same time. Lesson delivered without having to say anything at all. My students understood the reasons why I chose to segregate our classroom for that short amount of time and reflected deeply on the matter. The first student that spoke out about my behavior not being appropriate was the same one who was in tears after the lesson because he couldnt believe something like this happened in our country. He argued the point that we are the land of the free, yet people were treated differently because their outsides were different. When we cracked the white and brown egg and saw that the inside of both of them were the same, the students shared that their expectations the people in their lives was that they were kind hearted, a good friend and that they were courageous. It took courage and strength for the students to tell me that they would walk out of my classroom if I didnt stop, and took a young man of nobility to share with me that he felt I was going back on my word of being a good and decent human being. It was a powerful day in 3rd grade.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:06:45 +0000
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