Integration

Mrs. B originally grew up in Chicago at the height of the integration movement.  Yesterday after class she volunteered to share what she experienced with my students, so today she did!  We looked up a map of her town... the kids wanted to see her old house so they instructed us to click the "street view."  Mrs. B told us that they had to bus white kids into black neighborhoods for school and black kids into white neighborhoods for school.  The people in her town had a meeting to decide what to do, and afterwards many found their tires slashed!  Her parents ended up sending her to a private Lutheran school a little ways away.


I introduced the science fair project today.  A bunch already had ideas for their topics.  A few wanted to do an engineering project instead of a science fair project, but I don't have that information laid out as neatly.  I'll have to do a lot more studying to get that ready if the student still wants to do it.  I think they're under the assumption that engineering project means they get to build something just to build it.  Instead, the engineering project is meant to solve a problem.  You look for a situation that could be improved with a tool, then you make the tool.  We'll see what happens.


I sent off the WEM application today.  Emailed it to the appropriate people just a few minutes ago.  Whew! Glad that's over with!  One of my students nominated me for an outstanding educator award earlier this year and the deadline for my application is this Friday.  Made it with a few days to spare!  The application process on my end involved writing a cover letter, answering nine essay questions 300-400 words each, and collecting three letters of recommendations from a principal, colleague, and parent/student.  My application ended up being 19 pages long.  They judge them at the end of February and results are announced in April.  So now we wait!