MLK celebration

Today was my second day at Humboldt and they had their MLK celebration this afternoon. This is especially poignant now that I'm at a school where over 95% of the students are eligible for free/reduced lunch, and 65% of the students are African American. Those are amazing demographics for Portland, and I could easily pretend I was in Memphis right now if it were a shade warmer outside. It brings up some interesting feelings for me, being in a place where this shouldn't be statistically possible. I'm sure I'll get to reflect on this a lot more, especially watching all of the obvious signs of gentrification going on in the neighborhood around Mississippi/PCC Cascade which has changed profoundly even in the short time I've lived here. But I digress, the bulk of the day was spent watching the kids get ready, practice their speeches, and of course they were cute, as they always are. Tomorrow we're planting trees...

Right now I'm still a bit dazed by this total whirlwind shift from high school to elementary. The kids have shrunk several feet and are all rather squirmy. They say in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I'm a giant in my new surroundings-I think there may be one male staff member who "might" be taller than me. Otherwise, I'm definitely a one-woman freak show. It's definitely a huge adjustment on my part, but I'll admit that I think that seventh graders are veeeerrry cute. Hard to say if I'll feel that way when the honeymoon's over and I'm the one who has to teach them. I'm still in that blissful period where I find their antics cute. I think the biggest problem I have right now (besides being freaked out about the whole "lining up" thing) is when they act up, it's so comical to me that I can't help but laugh at them and can't keep a straight face to save my life. I probably need to work on my "game face" some more.

At least now I have an idea for a work sample topic...which takes place during February, so duh, I can do a Black History Month theme which I will admit excites me greatly. I really miss doing this with my MLC classes. I looked forward to it every year and I used to put a lot of effort into this in the past by scrounging up materials from the library (the ironic thing of course is that the reading level is going to be almost the same). It was one of the few "non-literature" units we did, and I used to string it out from the middle of January until the end of February. I figured living in Memphis this was a golden opportunity so I'd go beyond the usual topics (MLK, Rosa Parks), and hit the highlights of some of Memphis' musical history, and less-widely known but important civil rights activists. Now all I have to do is find some developmentally appropriate things to do with seventh graders...word.