A Lesson Learned

Teaching 5th graders at Almaty International School is sheer delight. Each and every day I learn something new from my international, country hopping, students. Our current reading unit focuses on inferring and predicting. We have been reading, The Wanderer by Sharon Creech. Not only is she a great author, but she allows for plenty of discussion within her pages of adventure. Yesterday, I had the students infer as to why one of the characters named, Moses, was teased and bullied as a child and therefore started using the nickname, Mo. Here is one response. "Moses was teased and bullied as a child because he was most likely a Jew. People have traditionally hated the Jews due to the claim of being God's chosen people." Another added, "Moses was a leader and prophet of God. People would recognize his name and be angered by the connection to Judaism." As I've taught over the past many years I was challenged as to why I found it so necessary to teach history and science in my classroom. I was told that these subjects aren't on the state assessment and so neither are of any value. I stood my ground and defended the need for more scientists in this country,which we are now extremely short of, and the need to understand and remember historical events. This fall I have spent six weeks teaching simultaneously two units on ancient civilizations spanning 1500 years. I challenge you, did the time spent on history fail my students? Did they learn anything from the past? Are they doomed to repeat it or learn from it?

Students playing a game about feudalism

Kings, Lords, Knights, Peasants