Sweet week in the South

(view of the sunrise from my hotel this morning)

These past few days have been so busy. I've been teaching five classes a day, and each class is an hour long. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is just so exhausting! You have to maintain such a high energy level for each and every class, and I don't want my fifth class of the day to know that they are my fifth class, you know? Right now I'm drinking some hot water with honey in it to hopefully soothe my sore throat for another day of teaching tomorrow. Luckily, even though the days have been really long and exhausting, the kids have been absolutely fantastic. Even though I've been to different schools, there are some things that all of the students have in common:

1. They all have these super thick Southern accents, and I flat out can't understand them! I ask each and every kid what their name is and I'd say that 75% of the time I repeat the name wrong (add to that list of unique names "Wyoming"- it was a girl). It takes a few tries to figure out ANYTHING that they say.
2. I ask, "What is something that our Englishmen are looking for in VA that is realllllly valuable that they are hoping to find in the ground?" Of course the answer I'm looking for is "gold," but all of these little darlings (and I mean ALL of them, at least for their first guess) is "COAL!"
3. I ask, "What is that crop that John Rolfe brings to Jamestown that winds up making them a ton of money?" I'm looking for "tobacco" but I keep getting "COAL!"
4. I ask, "If the English are crazy about gold, what are the Powhatan crazy about?" I ask this while holding a copper necklace but take a wild guess as to the answer I get..."COAL!" See a trend here? Keep in mind that most of their parents work with coal...
5. All of these students have been so incredibly sweet. I mean, I definitely had behavior issues with each class when students would get too excited and shout out instead of raise their hands, but each and every child was smiling, happy, and thanked me for coming to their classrooms. Most of the kids came up to me after class and tell me how much fun they had and ask me, "Can I hug you?" OF COURSE YOU MAY!!!! Oh they were just precious.

I even got this as a present! A cute little redhead came up to me as I was packing up after her class to give this to me. She said that she made this for me but had wanted to wait until the end of my class before giving it to me. She told me that my class was "awesome" and that I should definitely come back to her school again. That meant SO much to me and you better believe that this is going to be hung up in my cubicle, front and center.

At the last school I taught at, students were almost (emphasis on almost because they were too polite-really!) interrupting each other asking if I needed any help with my 50-some pound kit of artifacts. A couple of boys just wouldn't take no for an answer because "it just ain't right" for me to have to lug this kit around by myself. They took my kit all the way out and loaded it into the van for me!! I was just floored by the hospitality and the way these children behaved. They are still kids though, running through the halls and I saw a girl shove a boy into a wall. I still had to spend time going over appropriate classroom behavior like not shouting out and raising their hands. Ahhh but having 9 and 10 year-old students genuinely thanking me and appreciating me for coming to their school...that is really something special.

Southwest VA has a reputation in our office as being a bit behind other school districts. The education for the entire area is supposedly just lower than the rest of the state. After this week though, I think I have to disagree. I'm not going to judge them by their knowledge or education level, but instead I'm going with the fact that they just have different life experiences. They did not always know the answer to the questions I was asking but they were able to problem solve and get to the correct answer. That is always impressive to me--to watch the thought process unfold, especially in the situations where I expect the students to know a "basic knowledge" answer. Take the question about tobacco being a cash crop (this is something that all fourth graders should know, even this early in the school year). Just asking a question about tobacco wasn't getting any correct answers. Once I brought out the tobacco twist for them to see, ALL of the students in Russell County knew what it was. When I was in Loudoun County, those students--who have a reputation as being some of the smartest in the entire state--had no idea what it was just by looking at it. I had to tell them first that it was a cash crop grown at Jamestown before they told me it was tobacco. Students in Russell County knew all about lye soap and even how to make it, as opposed to Loudoun County students thinking the lye soap in my kit was cheese or butter. The students in Russell County told me that the chunk of salted meat I use in one of the programs comes from a pig, and even knew what part of the pig it came from. They knew how to make a powder horn for hunting because their families still use powder horns. One boy told me all about loading and firing a flint-lock musket. Different life experiences. Thats all.

I just love this part of the state. Love it.