We started the 3rd week of the alternative school today. The first two have gone well and I believe that we continue to make progress. I talked with another Alternative Educator last week and he spoke of the importance of building a community before academic success could be improved. We have worked at building a community but today injected two new students into the program.
One student is 20 years old and needs 2.5 credits to finish. The other is a senior who need 7 credits to graduate but his girl friend attends the program which in itself is no problem but he is very jealous of anyone she talks to, thus creating more stress for her. The 20 year old cannot be in classes with another existing student because of legal issues down the road. And we are supposed to build a community.
We want to create responsible citizens who can make good decisions in voting in the future-their focus is totally on passing classes-I want no outside issues just the facts.
Another teacher and I were talking about sports recently, she said we should develop a poster about "All I learned about life I learned in Football" and since most of my life has been spent either playing, coaching, and officiating the sport perhaps I should start with society needs to develop those team work skills. In order to be successful (win the game) I must learn to block for the person that may be a different color, different religion, different class or just someone I don't like. How unique would that be for a political change.
Peace