Old Memories and New as the year winds down

I am already starting to feel nostalgic. I’ve been taking lots of pictures and videos recently of my classes. I am going to miss them horribly. It has really been an incredible year. I have a wonderful group of students and my 5th period has just captured my heart. I really should write about all the wonderful things we’ve done this year but once I’m out of work and have time to myself I just want to relax instead of write.

But, tonight I was downloading videos and pictures of the kids and I decided 1) I needed to share some of the stories and videos, and 2) I wanted to look back at the videos I had from kids in the past. I realized I had forgotten some kids. It’s sad. I felt really awful. But I had forgotten I had those kids in class! Once I saw them, the names came back, but I couldn’t believe I forgot them. But as I watched the videos, even the classes that had been troubling at times brought a smile to my face. Think how many kids will come through my door by the time my career is over…

Anyway, my kids are doing projects and so far they’re all really interesting. 3rd period is leading the class on a tour of different countries (making a documentary, a travel guide, and then “taking us there” on one day in class). 4th period and 6th are doing individual projects, including a movie written in English, translated and spoken in spanish (with English subtitles!) on Guatemala, a video of the history of British government traditions in stop-action-lego photography (ha!), a breakdown of what would happen if WWIII started tomorrow, a mural, an incredibly accurate-looking National Geographic, etc. 5th period’s creativity and unity is at it’s all-time high again. They’re making a class movie. I’m not kidding. They have directors, writers, actors, set, costumes, camera crew and film editors. Everyone has a part that perfectly fits them. They’ve got a character web and today we started filming. It was a mess, but tomorrow will be better so…seriously, I’ll tell you more about it later. But suffice it to say, it’s incredibly awesome. It’s the story of the CIA overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq, democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran because Britain didn’t want to lose their oil and we thought he was communist. It includes a weak Shah, an Iranian Princess twin sister who is strong, CIA agents, British undercover agents in the Shah’s household, military leaders, guerilla leaders, a crusading New York Times Journalist, secret documents, and a suitcase full of cash. And what’s awesome, is we’re not making it up at all and I got the kids to read 100 pages of secret CIA documents…

Ok, no more.

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