ASSEMBLE!

Growing up in school, every now and then we would all be herded into the gym or auditorium because we had a guest speaker coming to change the world, one small school at a time.  It was always a great time away from the class for us to listen to yet, another great person that did something great with their lives that was going to help us change into perfect little angels that never caused any trouble, giving our lives color.  Well, while we gradually changed to black and white little children, the students at my school have lives filled with every color in the rainbow.  And, after being there three months, sometimes it is hard to think they are ever going to get rid of those colors.  Which can be a good thing sometimes.  Who wants to live in a black and white perfect world?

Today we had an assembly, YLC style.  Since there is no gymnasium, auditorium and hall in our school, we put all the kids into our largest classroom, which is actually two classrooms divided with a simple divider.  The whole school, except the preschool and kindergartners came together to listen to a woman talk about November 18; the day that Haiti fought the start of the battle that soon became their independence.  It was fun being one of the only two white people listening to a big presentation about the slaves revolting to win their independence.  This was the second time that the lady has been here, as she talked about the Haitian people being slaves from Africa, but then continued her presentation today, and will wrap it all up later in the year.  

Watching these kids listen as their history is revealed to them is so exciting, as they all have smiles on their faces and actually sit and listen.  The first time she came, the kids were a little disrespectful, yet, today, they all did much better as they knew that she really was a good presenter.  

While it was good to have this lesson, as for the rest of the day it was hard to work with.  With the whole morning taken for the presentation, there was absolutely no learning being done.  Then, come the afternoon, the students all just want to take naps, wasting their time and mine.  Teaching in the afternoon is almost impossible, as no one will listen.  Therefore, today, while very easy for me, was a waste of time.  

Every Wednesday we have a teachers meeting after school and Mrs. Beauregard decided to have each teacher do a lesson for the other teachers, showing how they do in their classroom.  Today, obviously, was my day.  I had a week to prepare and didn't think about it until the middle of the ladies presentation.  I had nothing to do it with, so thought back to my days in school.  I decided to do a lesson on color, being an art major.  I was going to make the color wheel out of food coloring and water, as well as bringing in some Science showing how and why the colors spread at different speeds.  After school, Samir and I rushed to the supermarket to buy the coloring.  However, they didn't have any so we went to the Jell-O aisle to use it instead.  After tracking it all down, we discovered there was no blue, so the plans changed.  We went to the soda aisle and finally found a blue soda, yellow and red soda.  We took them back and WHAM! it all worked perfectly!  The presentation went well and everyone seemed to be impressed as they all learned.  (Only Alicia knew anything about colors...unless everyone else was faking dumb.)