Thoughtful Teens

The boardwork prompt for today's classroom was, "Choose 1 gift that you could give to the most important person in your life before you left them. The gift must represent you. What would it be and why? The students, all day, were commenting on how difficult it was to choose either the one gift or which one person to whom they wanted to bequeath said gift. One student went so far as that he left my class each day with a migraine because he was thinking too hard. I smiled and said good. You would not believe the responses to this prompt that these teens gave. Very few, that shared out loud, were incidental objects. Many, especially those who came from divorced households, said they wanted to give memories of one special occasion or another to the parent that they didn't live with because they rarely saw them. One student, who is normally fairly brazen and obstinate, became choked with emotion as he described how he wanted to share his memory of his grandma with his younger sister who had never met her. When I prompted him to explain why, he simply bowed his head and said, "because she was awesome" and didn't look up again or talk for quite some time. It was one of those gem-filled days as a teacher. My boardworks are supposed to be the first 10 minutes of class with maybe five minutes of sharing or discussing. Recently, however, they have been lasting 20-25 minutes because the kids are really feeling strongly about what they write. It is great. Where I expected more of the trivial things to be handed to "best friends," I was surprised to see how many really could think deeply and reflectively about their lives.