Skip to main content

Trust

My youngest son leaves for  white water rafting camp tomorrow.  He will be gone for eight days.  In his eleven years, he's never been away from me for that long.  Last night we had a parent meeting at our church telling us all about the trip.
My Baby
 I think they waited until two nights before the trip to give us the details because they were afraid we'd change our minds if they told us ahead of time  First of all, they will be driving for two days to reach their destination which is somewhere near Sacramento.  Once they reach the camp, they will sleep OUTSIDE.  Outside as in ON THE GROUND!  I had no idea. I thought they were going to be in cabins!  I was worried enough about the actual rafting, but now I have to worry about bears.  Oh, and it's supposed to rain while they're there.  What if he gets all cold and wet?  And they're going on a hike.  Are there ticks?  What if he gets Lyme's disease?  Who will make sure he has sunscreen on?  What if he gets a sunburn?  What if he breaks a bone or cuts himself?  How far is the nearest hospital?  These are just a few of the worries and questions that filled my mind during the meeting.  At the end, the youth group leader asked if there were any questions.  I looked around at all of the other parents, but nobody raised a hand.  Were they thinking what I was thinking?  I started to raise my hand, but then I looked at my son who shot me a look that said, "PLEASE don't embarrass me!"  I put my hand down.  According to the youth group leader they've done this trip for twenty years with no major injuries or problems.  That made me feel a tad better.

 Being a parent is so hard.  Entrusting our children to others is also hard.  Yet, it's something we must do on a daily basis.  When I was student teaching over twenty years ago, my master teacher told me to treat every child as if he or she was the superintendent's child.  That made sense at the time.  However, once I had my own child, I changed my motto to "treat every child the way I would want my child treated."  I am not saying I have been 100% successful, but I do my best.  After all, I am not a perfect parent either.

I trust that my son is going to have a wonderful time at camp.  I trust that all of the adult's on the trip are looking out for the children they have been entrusted with.  I trust because the alternative would be unfair to my son.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TQE: Get students Engaged and Digging Deep

I've mentioned before how Twitter has helped me grow as an educator.  Edutwitter is a valuable resource for book recommendations, new teaching methods, lessons, and articles.  One of my favorite educators to follow is Marissa Thompson, a high school teacher at Carlsbad High. This summer I read about her TQE(thoughts, questions, epiphanies) method for discussing literature.  I'd always longed for having discussions like the ones I had in my college literature courses, but when I try fishbowl or Socratic seminar with my students, the discussions felt forced, flat, and awkward. That changed today when I tried TQE for the first time.  Sharing homework in small groups Students writing their TQEs on the board When I listened to Marissa's podcast on Cult of Pedagogy ( check it out here ), I was intimidated. After all, her students are in high school and have a rock star teacher.  I think I read the transcript twenty times before finally trying it....
5 comments
Read more

Writing an Essay...with a Partner

I love technology for collaboration! Teaching writing to middle school students is not easy.  All students come with different skills and knowledge.  With 35 students in a class, it's impossible to sit down one on one and assist students with the writing process.  Teaching students to write a literary analysis is particularly challenging because most seventh-graders have little, to no experience.  Students need to learn to  develop a thesis statement, find evidence from the text to support it, provide the context of the selected quotations , and write insightful commentary on the evidence they selected. Remember, these kiddos are twelve! Graphic organizers are particularly helpful to these young writers. The biggest challenge is providing feedback to students as they are writing, rather than after they turn their work in for a grade.  Students need to be able to use the feedback they receive and see the difference it makes in the final product.  I...
2 comments
Read more

Mock Trials-Periods 0 and 2

MY Ethan Couch (notice the shirt) Wow!  What a fantastic week it has been for me as a teacher!  My students have been working hard preparing for their assigned cases and getting ready to go to trial.  Each group was assigned a case based on an article we read in class.  One case was about a sixteen-year old  boy named Ethan Couch.  He had a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit when the car he was driving hit a disabled vehicle and killed four innocent people.  He receive one year of rehabilitation in Malibu and ten years probabtion as his punishment. His attorneys blamed his behavior on what was called "affluenza."  Please ask your child about this word and how it was used to defend him in court! The other case involved for teens who threw an eight pound rock over an overpass and struck the passenger side of a vehicle.  The passenger was Sharon Budd, a middle-school English teacher and breast cancer survivor.  Sh...
27 comments
Read more