Where did my Spring Break go??

Just a little somethin' for your Monday.

I’ve finished my whole class text and I’m ready to turn it in. I thought I was being so proactive before Spring Break by starting on Half the Sky before I found out it had to be a novel but luckily I was able to continue with my non-fiction text because I am really happy with my product. In my last blog I wrote about censorship and I was debating how I felt about reading the entire text with my students.

There are really graphic parts of the book, dealing with rape and sex trafficking that have stayed with me years after I read it for the first time. What I’ve decided to do was to make the entire book available for my students and encourage them to read it in it’s entirety on their own if they feel the desire to do so but in class we will focus on maternal mortality, education, and economic empowerment as well as what they students can do to be actively engaged in worldwide social justice from home in Austin.

When I started researching what I wanted to accomplish by using Half the Sky I stumbled across amazing resources the authors of the book made available online. The website has great discussion questions and short film clips made from the full documentary. Each film clip is only about 10 minutes and perfect to share with a class as a supplement to the text. For students who struggle to visualize or make real life connections to the text the film clips feature women from the text. They will be able to put a face to the names they are reading and will, ideally, be more interested in the women’s causes they fight for.  

Looking through the resources on the Half the Sky website was a good reminder that there are countless resources to be taken advantage of on the Internet. I think as a classroom teacher it is important to keep in mind that there is a HUGE support system available to you if you make the effort to reach out. Being in our own class everyday with only students and no other adults can feel isolating. When I’ve observed I never saw adults come in the class last semester and the only ones that come to my CT’s room this semester is to check to see if the printer works! When I subbed I think I talked to one other teacher. We will need to make the effort but we will have each other when we start teaching, our facilitators, our colleagues but it’s an effort that WE have to make.