Our World Tuesday: School and Supper

Fall came this week, even if summer has another few weeks to its name.  We have the evidence:

School started for me and for Della.  She likes her teachers, including the chemistry teacher who set something on fire to get the kids thinking about the possibilities.  My students are among the coolest young people on this planet.  They are good little urbanites ready to work hard and to work with each other.  I had them decide our classroom norms.  They weren't sure what to do with the freedom to establish the terms of their learning, but I reminded them they earned the right by behaving so well and, besides, the people who established our freedom--from Ben Franklin to Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King--didn't go to the trouble so they could shrug off the opportunity to make their own world.  I asked them to tell me what they needed to feel safe and protected in our classroom.  

They came up with some good stuff.  Each class had its own ideas about what it liked and didn't like in a classroom, but a common thread, in the words of my class of repeaters, was, "Don't humiliate us."  Another, "Let us work with each other on hands-on projects,"  and, "Let us help each other out."  My favorites were:  "Don't make weird sounds," and "Work with us; don't be a dictator."  What would seem obvious but wasn't:  "Reward our successes."  (All of these offer insight into why some kids just plain hate school.)

I typed up and projected their norms at the beginning of each class, and I showed them their peers' norms to see if the other classes thought of something they had not.  Nope; they were good.  They had what they needed to feel safe and protected.  

At the end of a good week, we had some good food with some good friends.  After a trip to a nearby family farm, there were fried green tomatoes:

And sweet corn on the cob:

And shrimp and grits with scallions and squash:

That was after breakfast with another good friend at one of the best delis in town:

All the excitement wore Maeve out.  Here she is too tired to get back on her bed:

Life is good.

Our World Tuesday