This is a repost from May 5, 2015. Jennifer reports:
Hey Ben –
The impetus for me writing now is from a student questionnaire. I used Anne Matava’s questionnaires yesterday and got a wrenching response from a student. Just a bit of background…as you know context is everything.
I’m doing a super short session with some middle school students at a local public school. Only 6 hours with them in 3 sessions. This is part of a National Writing Project special workshops offered. Ha! Mine is not really going to be writing at all, but I was able to slide it through anyway! So stealth. I knew this school only had Spanish so I decided to do some French. Just because. No worries, we will produce some story strips for their publication, but I am more interested in getting to know the kids and because they all chose French out of all the cool offerings I want them to have an experience in French!
Yesterday was day one. We did some circling with cards, lots of TPR and lots of laughing. In French. It was really joyful – 9 kids. Time flew, oh my goodness! I’m planning to do “Oprah Interviews” aka Star of the Day for the main “content,” so I had them fill out the questionnaire toward the end of the session. Obviously since I only have 2 more classes with them I’m only going to pick a few questions.
In response to the question about “any interesting or unusual facts about you” this girl wrote “I don’t care if people hate me because I hate myself too.” I just read that this morning because I’m finally getting around to reading them. Of course I just wept reading this. I don’t even know where this comes from. I had a hunch about this girl, who of course is lovely and sweet and curious and an amazing artist – from what I gathered in 2 short hours yesterday. She played the game and laughed and giggled and “walked romantically” and was right with me the whole time, volunteered to draw Harry Potter on the board, etc.
The clue was at the end of the class I did the 10 finger “how much did you feel you understood today?” which I never do because I know what they understood, because of the process and their eyes and their instant responses. But something compelled me to do this and what a window into their little souls. This girl showed two fingers. So that was a huge red flag. Duh. And then this proclamation of self-hatred. Sigh. I am stunned that she would even share this with a perfect stranger. BTW, the boys in the group showed 8 fingers on average while the girls showed 6. Hmmm.
But they all understood everything as evidenced by the process and a disguised “quick quiz” I gave where they drew stuff on white boards and wrote translations of sentences I made up on the spot, which were totally original sentences using the structures we worked with. OY!
Fortunately I am spending the weekend with Elissa and Laurie Clarq so I will have two other great souls to bounce around ideas. Of course I don’t pretend that in 2 sessions I can “do something” but at the same time I will do everything I can to provide an experience for these kids to feel some joy and power and a bit of their true genius. Which is the whole point of this anyway.
There was a teacher there yesterday who popped in and noticed “a boy who has real focus issues.” She was astounded at his focus. I have no idea which kid she was talking about because they were all playing the game so well. Um yeah. Because every child is a genius. Anyway, like I said I have a total of 6 hours with these kids. And I kind of like that I don’t know their histories because then it can’t color my experience with them in the time we have. I can’t wait for the next session.
Thank you for creating the amazing space we have to share all of this so that we can create joyful moments with our students.