In honor of Valentines Day I had the kids I teach make "I Love..." Poems. Simply enough they were asked to write "I Love" 25 times on a piece of paper and then fill in the blanks with what they love. Ion in 5th grade asked me what Love is. I answered his question with the Romanian translation for love. He looked at me kind of confussed and said "no I know what the word is in Romanian, but what does love mean?" I laughed a bit and thought to myself what did I get myself into! At first the kids were a bit shy but once I started writing a couple of my "I love" lines they felt much more comfortable and started to write. Except for the couple of kids who copied their neighbors lines the rest really put a lot of thought and effort into there work...can't win all the battles, at least they are writing in English. From my experience in the Romanian school system, creativity is not practiced and/or encouraged. I am trying really hard to change those ideals but it will not happen over night. Most of my fellow teachers think I am a bit crazy for doing things like poems, song lyrics and other "new aged" teaching methods such as walking around the classroom interacting with the kids instead of staying at the black board in front of the room and lecturing. Even the majority of my students did not understand when I ask them a very subjective question such as "What you do prefer ketchup or mustard?" and tell them there is no right or wrong answer. Even with the "I love..." poems I had a student ask if her line "I love pizza" was correct or wrong. I was blown away at how into these poems the kids were and how many questions I received about word translations, they were really trying to expnad their vocabulary. Some of the highlights that were written were as follows...
*I love Love - Amazing!
*I love my cell phone charger - When asked why, this student resonded "because with out the charger my cell phone will not work and I won't be able to text message...good point I thought.
*I love my english teacher - An "A" for her
*I love the color of the sky everyday - A Romanian Bob Dylan
That night I stayed up very proud of my successful lesson writing my own "I Love..." Poem...
I love my family
I love my friends
I love Chipotle Burritos
I love traveling
I love being told I can not do something
I love sun rises
I love sun sets
I love the mountains
I love the beach
I love to laugh
I love to smile
I love to love
I love to be loved
I love to day dream
I love my brother's laugh
I love living in my village in Romania
I love being outside
I love Music
I love playing the same great song on repeat
I love t-shirts and jeans
I love reading the New York Times
I love to be curious
I love to explore
I love the sound of accustic guitars
I love to be challenged
I love the feeling of nerves, excitement, happiness, sadness anything that is real
I love not being told what to do
I love to drive with the windows down
I love road trips
I love making mistakes and learning from them
I love to get lost
I love what I am doing
I love LIfe
I love to Shake Up the World
Much Love to all :)
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2 comments:
I love Chipotle burritos too!! ..and to laugh!
unbelievable...i guess it's true what they say, that simple things are the one that matter. and you probably do not realize it either, until you rush daily thru what it is that you think it's important for the moment and forget the most simple and beautiful things.
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