A Teacher’s Thoughts

Some time back, Ray Gilmore, a gradate of our school had written a letter to the local paper. He was serving in the Army in Afghanistan in a remote region near the Iranian border. His mission was with the local people. He spent his days planning and guiding the building/rebuilding of various infrastructure such as water systems and schools. His letter appealed to the community to help him by sending donated school supplies.

Most of the teachers on my team had known him from his eighth grade days. After seeing the article we decided to launch into a project to help. Will the students motivate to this project?

After some planning and “talking it up” with the students we began a three day intensive study on Afghanistan. We wanted to get out of the box on this one so we began by separating the boys and the girls for all instruction. Weird, no complaints? Our students researched what life was like from the perspective of the information they could find on girls and boys in Afghanistan. Their end assignment was to create a convincing argument/statement about some social or political issue facing Afghanistan today.

On the last day of the project we all met in the lecture hall where we set up for a video conference with Ray. Engagement was complete. Many students had submitted questions previously and loved the opportunity to be a direct part of the conference. They took it so seriously and showed each other the highest level of respect. As for Ray, the smile on his face as he had the opportunity to give back to his school was obvious. He laughed aloud as he saw his previous eighth grade teachers stop by to say hello.

At the end of the day, everyone, Teachers, students and an Army officer stationed in remote Afghanistan, had learned. Everyone had engaged and created and we all celebrated.