out of the mouths of babes

I've decided that I am going to begin posting some stories from my first grade classroom. I will keep names confidential. Most of the stories will be lighthearted, funny, and bring insight into this hilarious group of 26 kids.

Yesterday was a particularly rough day, where I was fed up with 4 of the students in my class who have the biggest behavioral problems. I got to the end of the day, and began to just sob. I care about these kids so much. Our school has a very high poverty rate. Many contextual factors influence these kids as they walk in the door to my room. I decided today was a new day and I was goign to go in confident and ready to teach.

For Black History month, I have been reading a book about a different black person each day. Today, I read the childrens book "Barack."
One of the pages in the book compared him to a modern Martin Luther King Jr. It was talking about the obstacles Dr. King had to help us overcome, and how Obama has had to help our nation overcome battles today. The book was talking about the civil rights movement and how schools used to be segregated.

One of the little girls in my class whom we will call M raised her hand with a question: How come schools are supposed to be places where we learn to be kind to each other, and the white people back then went to school and learned to be mean to black people? She then proceeded to say, if we are all supposed to get along, why would they ever separate kids learning by their skin color? She then said "It just doesn't make sense."

If I understood the root of the questions, she was trying to figure out why people would grow up to be so cruel. It was hard for a 7 year old to grasp that schools used to be so segregated. Sadly, some still are today in the inner city. The school I work at, thankfully is fairly diverse representing a spectrum of cultures.

I responded by telling M that her question was quite profound. I tried my best to explain that we are supposed to love but some people have hate in their hearts. I am still reeling with thoughts about this question...