So This is Love
If you thought, from the title of this post, that I'd met someone special and was about to announce our engagement and future happiness, you were wrong. But I did meet someone special: our 8th graders.
We took them on a field trip to Lehman College today to see a performance of a musical version of "Anne Frank." Despite the fact that we had to walk 15 blocks to the subway in cold, drizzly weather, despite the fact that the show was not very good and terribly heavyhanded, despite the fact that the campus had no indoor spaces where we could eat lunch, so we had to walk back in the cold weather to school for a late lunch, in spite of all those things, the kids were fabulous. They were respectful during the performance. They were sociable but not loud or obnoxious during the walk to and from the theater and on the subway trips. When we left the theater, they politely thanked the actors and shook their hands, even though many of the students didn't actually like the performance. And when we got home and let them play outside (and in the gym, once the rain really started coming down), they played together so well - some kids playing basketball, others practicing moves from their step dance class, others chasing each other around the gym in a game of tag - that we felt completely okay allowing them a fairly long period of free time rather than trying to make up activities to fill the time. We even got to relax a little ourselves; a few kids taught me some dance steps with good humor and patience.
And I had time to watch them, to notice that they like each other, that even when two students are not best friends they do not torment each other, that they fool around but they are genuinely good people at heart. And I fell in love all over again.
We took them on a field trip to Lehman College today to see a performance of a musical version of "Anne Frank." Despite the fact that we had to walk 15 blocks to the subway in cold, drizzly weather, despite the fact that the show was not very good and terribly heavyhanded, despite the fact that the campus had no indoor spaces where we could eat lunch, so we had to walk back in the cold weather to school for a late lunch, in spite of all those things, the kids were fabulous. They were respectful during the performance. They were sociable but not loud or obnoxious during the walk to and from the theater and on the subway trips. When we left the theater, they politely thanked the actors and shook their hands, even though many of the students didn't actually like the performance. And when we got home and let them play outside (and in the gym, once the rain really started coming down), they played together so well - some kids playing basketball, others practicing moves from their step dance class, others chasing each other around the gym in a game of tag - that we felt completely okay allowing them a fairly long period of free time rather than trying to make up activities to fill the time. We even got to relax a little ourselves; a few kids taught me some dance steps with good humor and patience.
And I had time to watch them, to notice that they like each other, that even when two students are not best friends they do not torment each other, that they fool around but they are genuinely good people at heart. And I fell in love all over again.
posted by ms. v. at 5:51 PM
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