Day 7 and 8

 

*Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney (c) Capcom

Tuesday was a fairly productive day. Students prepared for their big debate day on Thursday. Joey and I chose names at random to see who was going to be on which side. Either they were going to support immigration and who was going to argue against it. They were allowed to continue writing on whichever side they felt they wanted write about, but were required to have evidence to support both sides. After the debate, they are going to write about the other side anyway.

I was surprised at how many students were against immigration! I know, as a teacher, we cannot say that their opinions are wrong. But deep inside me I was surprised, even a little scared. I wanted to tell them, “NONE of you would even be here if not for immigration!”

They briefly looked over the rough drafts they had about the topic with one another. There was not as much time as I would have liked. We did not go Wednesday so I am unsure if they had more time then.

We also had a wonderful opportunity to attend a teacher meeting. They went over test scores and were collaborating with one another. They separated students by class and subject to see who needed help and where. They were all very adamant about giving the best for their students and were surprised or sad when discovering a student did not perform well on the recent NECAP scores. It was enlightening to see where teachers saw problems and how closely they pay attention to students. They know and understand their students so well and genuinely care about all of them. I wish people who wrote those “teacher does something wrong again” articles got to see these teachers and learn a thing or two from them. One teacher was concerned about an advanced placement student not doing work and how they wanted to help. They did not gossip about what the problem was, but how they could make her school life easier and get her back on task.

I was unfortunately losing my voice that day and was not able to teach and talk to the other teachers as much as I would have liked to, but I am still glad I was able to attend this meeting and see students in action again.

On Thursday, the sixth grade had their debate. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to see young students professionally dressed up, folders in hand, and ready to get into action. They were all lawyers that day and I was positively giddy at seeing so many prepared students. The sixth grade debate was supporting or arguing against excavating Egyptian tombs.

I thought that we were going to have to push questions on the students to get them talking, especially since the sixth grade had never done a debate before. Not needed. They jumped right in and really kept the debate going. Neither group “finished” their debate that day. I was amazed at the questions, the responses, and the preparedness. I was rendered speechless at moments. I remember last week we told the students to dazzle us. I was indeed dazzled.