On Friday morning, we all went to this town called La Carpio. It reminded me much of the time I spent in Belize, working at the orphanage. After listening to Gail speak about how she got started working with this group of people, I chose to stay behind at the daycare and help out there and just give the children attention. I actually sat in the “nursery” area, where the smallest child was seven months old and the oldest was a toddler. These children reminded me much of the little ones I work with at home, full of energy and wanting to play, play, play. At first, I just enjoyed being the children but as I sat there for a while, I started to notice the toys and things that the children had to play with and how little room they had to spend their entire day in.
As a teacher, I just wanted to sit with each child for hours and hours and just give them any kind of knowledge that I could. I sat with one girl and as she pulled off different pieces of different puzzles, I would say the name of the object, be it an animal or a number, and she would repeat it. It was such an amazing experience seeing this little girl responding and learning from the few words that I was able to spit out in Spanish. I just wanted to stay there all day, all week, the whole trip. Those little child are wonderful little people who just have so much to give. I think that is SO important to remember as a teacher, no matter the background of your students, be it low low SES or high high SES, your students are all full of amazing gifts and talents and it is our job to nourish those gifts and talents. Those students may not have any other type of “nourishment” for their gifts so we need to give them all individually everything we have to allow them to grow into the wonderful big people that they are destined to be.
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