Janet

It is the weekend before finals week and just after dead week and I think dead week lived up to it's name again this year.  I had a final every single day except thursday, which was spent finishing my website for Exceptional Child.  It was a long week and it hasn't slowed down one bit.  I have to re-do my lesson plan final for my Core Teaching Skills lab because apparently I missed the memo on not using narrative books for second graders because it will "confuse them."I also have a take-home final due monday (our class was informed that if we simply turn it in we will get an A) and then two finals next week.  So far my finals have gone pretty well.  I received two B's on my practice Praxis exam but that is actually a good grade for the class from what I understand.  That put my grade in that class at a 90.8; I have heard that to receive and A in the class you need a 94, but that has yet to be confirmed.  I am ready for summer.  How about everyone else out there?

The real reason I wanted to blog today was because I heard an amazing story yesterday during my Culture and Language class that I just wanted to share.  We had a pizza party to celebrate the end of the year and to just chat with everyone and say our goodbyes.  We had a lot of cool stories that were shared throughout the semester because it is a diverse class with a lot of different backgrounds and races being represented.  It was nice just to say thanks to the people in the class for sharing their views and thoughts because sometimes it is hard to share your views in a class like that.

One of the men in the class, Pedro, hails from the Congo, by way of Portugal.  He brought a guitar and sang us two songs that he had written himself, to share his life stories.  One was in the native language of the Congo, and the other in Portuguese so you could not really understand him, but the emotions conveyed in the song translated just the same.  The first song was written about a moment that changed Pedro's life.  It occurred during Apartheid in South Africa. Pedro became friends with a caucasian woman named Janet, who had been fighting against the apartheid; it was a very rare thing at that time to see a white woman protesting and fighting against this view.  Pedro had been visiting Janet one day when she received a package in the mail.  She had been expecting one and was excited for it so she asked Pedro to stay for awhile.  He couldn't stay so he left to be on his way.  Moments later, as he was leaving the building, he heard a loud noise and the building shook.  Inside the package that Janet had received was a bomb.  It killed her and her young daughter.

To hear Pedro share this story was so moving, as was his beautiful voice and song.  I am sure some of the details are wrong because it was hard to really focus and remember because everyone was just caught up in it but that story is fairly accurate.  It was such a powerful moment in our class and one you will rarely find in classes these days.  It definitely made getting another endorsement in ESOL worth it, just that moment.

I hope everyone is getting through their semesters okay and are still plugging away because summer is just around the corner!