three lessons from students

It's a false cliche to say that we learn more from students than they do from us. The reality is that teachers typically teach more than they learn. By the end of the year, I will have taught a student about history, economics geography, how to construct a paragraph and hopefully how to think well about life.

Yet, there is an element of truth to this cliche. This week, students taught me three valuable lessons.

1. Only one student from IMPACT volunteered to paint our mural on Saturday. I think there were about three or four from the Social Awareness Club. I was dissapointed and a little jealous. The one student who attended percieved my sense of dissapointment and commented, "I know you're dissapointed. Teachers always want lots of kids for this stuff. But then they complain about wanting small class size. Don't you think that's weird?" I think he's onto something.

2. When we sketched out lines on the mural, a boy commented to me, "It seems like Mr. Lucero is leading this right now." I concurred and asked why he pointed it out. "I've never seen a Mexican in charge of a white guy unless someone gave him his position." I still don't think it was an issue of power or who was in charge, but it proved to me that students are much more concious of race and power than we tend to consider.

3. A girl asked me randomly if I pray for Joe Arpaio. Taken aback, I asked her why and she said, "I've just never seen any Christians pray for him and I wonder if praying for our enemies, I mean really praying for them, is a solution we've been ignoring." For the first time ever, I prayed for Sherrif Joe.