Chatty Children, Observations and Barack Obama

Yesterday afternoon, a colleague of mine said that her kids had done really well that day and she was encouraged. Until, she realized they were 1/2 asleep... I laughed, nodded, and secretly prayed that wasn't the case in my class, but now I think it might have been true.

They were soooooo chatty. I couldn't get them to stop talking. I can say, at least, that they were chatting about what they were supposed to be learning. That would certainly make my emergent literacy professors proud : ) Still, there comes a time when you just need them to be quiet!

My observation went well, in spite of the talking. The assistant principal seemed very encouraged and enthusiastic. She said that I am a wonderful teacher and she feels my kids are lucky. Yay! She also gave some tips on how to handle the wiggliness and talking : ) I'm eager to try them out.

Okay, now for the funny (or not so funny) stories. The election is two weeks from today. I've decided that since these only happen every 4 years, that I needed to take the opportunity to teach my students about the process and about each candidate.

My kids will randomly bring up Barack Obama's name- and we've had some interesting discussions before, but today was very enlightening. For the first part, nearly every child told me that their family was going to vote for Obama. At one point, the kids were even CHANTING HIS NAME! It was making me shudder and I told them to stop immediately....

I wanted to enlighten them about both candidates and try to teach them that there is much to be considered in an election. So we wrote down things we knew about each candidate and things we wanted to know. I asked them what they knew about Obama. What was the first thing they said? He is black. The second thing? He has black hair. Thirdly, he loves people who are poor.

Okay, so then I ask the students what they want to know about him. We agree it is important to know what his family is like and who his friends are (they shuddered when I mentioned that some of his friends are mean people). We wanted to know where he went to school and what kinds of laws he wrote as a Senator.

One girl said, "I know. He writes laws to give money to poor people." I took advantage of this opportunity and asked her where he gets the money to give to the poor people. This part was funny. They thought of everything-- umm, the bank? no. ohh, the machine that makes the money. nope. okay, he gives them money from his house? not very much. oh, well, then his friends give him money. maybe, you could say that. (At this point they are getting very frustrated) So then I told him that I Barack Obama takes my money to give to the poor people.

And this led to a discussion about the difference between charity and socialism, but not with those big words : )

We moved on to John McCain- in which they new- first that he was a white man and second that he had white hair Ha! Then the same girl who said that Barack Obama loves poor people wanted me to write that John McCain "doesn't care about poor people." I told her that was not fair to say and wrote that McCain cares about people and their money instead. They couldn't tell me anything else about him- so I added that he had been a soldier. This automatically scores points with the boys.

Somebody asked if he'd ever been shot before and I gave a mild description about being a POW . We came up with many questions for him- most of which mirrored those for Barack Obama. Then somebody randomly asked what John McCain's middle name was. I told him I didn't know, but I do know Mr. Obama's. They eagerly asked what it was and then gave me funny looks as I said "Hussein."

I am nervous for the election. What if everybody who votes for Obama only knows that he is black, has black hair and "loves poor people"?

You can certainly pray about that--- and that tomorrow goes well.
Wednesdays=Short Days=Organized Chaos.
Should be fun : )