13 Moons On A Turtles Back..........Ancient Places

Where ever we stand right now, we stand on a planet that is very old, compared to our individual lifespan with a great story to reveal to us. If you ask 1st graders during circle sitting in November to "hear" the story of their place in space it can lead you to several days of moving around our sun, turning around and finding yourself amazed at the most interesting of moments when a child remarks, "I am more like a trickster than I am a hero." Pretty interesting. Or hear another child say, "My people came from Africa so the story Zomo spoke to me, it was about my beginnings." Or how about this, " No matter what we read we seem to find the story is telling us to protect our home and our Earth."

I've been recording kids again, as they chat, talk, read, write, work, figure out problems and then taking these little clips usually 30 seconds in length, recording the content and looking at what this is telling me within different sets of considerations. It's actually an effort to improve my 2nd language instruction. I am listening so I might see how they speak, phrase, produce, understand, relate. I'm interested in who speaks, how, in how they work socially together. My class is almost completely very limited speakers of English, thats changing , taught in English. Since data reveals our school to fail my particular group pretty effectively, I'm working on language the heart of the problem.