Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Morgan Freeman is my Co-Pilot

My students were working on the first little project of the year this afternoon. Their task was to come up with 30 nouns and/or adjectives that described them in some way, and when the lists are completed, trace their hands on a piece of paper and then scribe the words they have chosen along the outline. The last step is to decorate the hand, cut it out, and mount it on construction paper for display.

This simple activity provides enormous insight into their classroom skills and their work habits, and the products end up being a wonderful snapshot of each student-- their hands, their designs, their words, but it was the work habits I was monitoring today when I told them that they were free to talk as they worked as long as the work got done. A little while into the period, one table was pretty chatty, but as I listened, their discussion seemed relevant to the task.

"I'm going to put 'Christian' on mine," said one boy, "because I am."

"I don't believe in God," responded the girl next to him.

"You're not going to go to heaven," warned another student.

She shrugged. "I don't believe in heaven."

The first boy was not alarmed by her statement at all. "You don't have to be Christian to go to heaven," he assured her sincerely. "You just have to be good."

The other boy nodded in agreement, but the first student wasn't done. "And then, when you get to heaven..." he paused for effect. "...you'll find out God is real!"

The girl seemed unconvinced, and then the conversation took a silly turn. "No!" he continued, "You'll find out God is me!"

The girl gave him a long look and then raised her eyebrows. "Funny," she said, adding purple to her paper, "you don't look anything like Morgan Freeman."

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