Thursday, January 28, 2010

It will be hard to fill thier shoes, yet we still try.

Yesterday in my education class my teacher wrote on the board,

"We walk in the foot steps of giants."

She then asked us to write our giants down on a piece of paper.

I wrote

My mom

Ms. Rugger (My Kindergarten teacher)

Mrs. Kaufman (My fourth grade teacher)

My dad

Debbie (My God-mother)

She then asked us to narrow it down to one person. She gave us a paper with a footprint outline on it, and asked us to write characteristics of our giant within the footprint.

I wrote in mine,

Hardworking, Loyal, Sincere, Loving, Fun, Patient, Selfless, Genuine, Beautiful, Perfect, Smart, Kind, Caring, Funny and a few others.

At the top of my footprint I wrote, "My Mom Laura"

We then placed our footprints in a circle around the room and we all walked through them, and read what each other wrote. It was a very emotional experience for me. I love my mom, I miss my mom and some days I am reminded just how much I miss her, and yesterday was one of those days.

After we finished reading the other footprints, our teacher then said, "Someday you are going to be the giant, what do you want your foot prints to say?"

It really got me thinking. I strive to be like all of my "giants" they are so perfect. And someday I hope to be someone else's "giant."

Most of all it makes me think about how lucky I was to have my mom in my life for the time that I did. If God were to ask me before I was born if I wanted to have my sweet momma for only 19 years, or some other mom for 50 years, I would with out a doubt choose my mom. If I were asked now if I would do it all over again, knowing that I would lose her, I would do it all again, without skipping a beat.

Oh how I miss that mom of mine. The last few nights she has been in my dreams, they are so real. I never want to wake up without her. But I know that she is forever by my side.

In other news, :) I went to Ogden Preparatory Academy yesterday for an hour an a half. I was a little nervous because it was my first day, but it wasn't too bad. I worked with 5 fifth grade boys. We made mind maps. I started inside the classroom with just three boys...not bad. They began telling me what their maps were about ect. Then the teacher asked another boy to join my group. He brought all of his stuff over and was very angry and annoyed. I asked him where his mind map was and he began to shuffle through his papers, two or three times, then told me he hadn't started one. So I told him we could start one right then, he got out a piece of paper. I said, "What is your mind map about?" He said, "Death" as he shakes his head yes. I said "Death?" He said, "Yes, people dying, people being shot, you know...boom boom (making gun noises)." I had no idea what to say, because I had no idea how sensitive the boy was, or simply why he wanted to write his mind map on death when the topic was Expansionism in the U.S. Finally after trying to convince the kid that we should probably make a map about Expansionism rather than death, the teacher came over and gave him an outline. (Hooray I was thinking, Hooray!) She then asks me to take the boys in the hall, and asks another boy to come with me. I now have 5 fifth grade boys, in the halls, running up the stairs, hiding in lockers, having a battle using pretend swords and gun noises. I ask the boys to sit down and work on their maps. A few sit on one side of the hall, some sit on the other, some want to sit on the stairs. Finally, they all agreed to sit on the stairs, oh my. They are now having one person sit at the bottom of the stairs while they run from the top and jump down. I thought someone was going to get hurt and I continually ask each boy to sit down and work on their map. The teacher then comes out, settles them down and tells them that I have the power to assign detention. (Hooray again!) With detention backing me up, they finished their mind maps, and soon enough they listened and the day was over. (Hooray Hooray!) After the class had left the teacher said, "Sorry, I really didn't mean to scare you on your first day. Those boys are wild, and I never usually put them together, they can be out of hand." Ha! Out of hand is an understatement. Anyway I will be back next Thursday, with a different class, and this time I'm hoping to work with sweet little girls. :)

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2 comments:

  1. If the expansionism you're talking about means expanding U.S. territory, then no wonder the boy wanted to write about death. How else have we expanded in the past? Anytime we've run into someone who had territory we wanted, we usually just killed them for it. Anyway, better luck with the kids next time.

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  2. Oh no I definitely agree. But he would have written about death regardless of the topic we were working on. He is just a fifth grade boy, and that's the way boys are. Although he was pretty excited to draw pictures of the battles on his mind map. :)

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