Love is...

I really didn't think I'd post this month for SJT. Life has kept me busy with a lot of details and less time than necessary to complete any of them.

One of those details was actually a myriad of smaller details. My school obtained a $5,000 grant for STEAM maker stations. My library partner and I seized the chance to create stations that featured high-quality nonfiction reading.

First, we asked teachers of science and math what concepts needed review and/or enrichment. Then, we planned out six stations that involved student creativity and thinking about those topics.

It's been busy, busy, busy rolling stations out to students this week as the kids love them! My partner and I have learned at least as much as our students in what to do and not to do and what supervision is needed where at what crucial moments. 

I find that this station work teaches so much more than STEAM. We are explicitly teaching behavior norms, language norms, and thinking norms. I've been coming home pretty pooped each day. But, on balance, I think more good learning has occurred than not. 

Yesterday, I sat with students at the 'Moonsand Mitosis' station. After we scooped moon sand on our trays and I showed them how to form a model of a stage of mitosis we just played and talked.

I found that students were longing to talk to an adult about life. My Tite 1 school is populated mainly by global majority of immigrants and children of immigrants. Time speaking about various topics has value.

I enjoyed listening to a group of students compare schools in another country to what they were experiencing here. Even though I heard some stories of tremendous challenges, I remembered what a friend and social worker taught me to ask, 'What do you miss?'

Kids from even the toughest, roughest places could remember the good things that they miss from home. This is love...remembering, speaking it, sharing it with someone new.

Love can be big. And, love can be small. Either way, it reaches all around the world.

Sending you love too! Linda M.