The past week and a half my students and I have talked a lot about Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr....
Having gone to a private school full of white people, this has been the very first time that I have really thought about the impact of Martin Luther King on our country. Now that I teach a very diverse group of students I can see the impact that it has made on them. They can see a potential for their lives that boys and girls like them could not see in the 5o's or 60's and before that. The fact that we just elected our first black president speaks volumes to them. Regardless of political party, electing the first black man as president, having his 2 little girls in the White House, one of them the same age as some of my students is very powerful. I just love that we are a step closer to showing them that they are capable of anything.
I had my kids right a paper tying in Martin Luther King Jr. and yesterday's inauguration. A lot of them wanted to read their papers out loud. I felt overcome with emotion when I read some of them. I think they really get how important Obama's election is, and most of them aren't even "for" him (or their parent's aren't).
While I had opposing feelings about Barack Obama before he was elected, I very much respect him because he is our president. I had a long talk with my students on voting day...we talked about how once a new president is elected, we don't have to agree with what he believes or what he does, but we should respect him because he is our president. Our leader.
Our 44th president.
1 comment:
its great that you're teaching your kids to respect our president even if we dont agree with him. they'll remember that the rest of their lives.
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