As an humble schoolteacher and writer, my days are filled with moments of joy.
One of those moments happened today.
My students and I were working on ‘Logical Lingo’ posters. They were in groups of four, trying to match measurements with things they could logically measure.
I was a little concerned when one of my students matched ‘1 Ton’ with ‘The Weight of a Newborn Baby’ but we figured it out. Now he has a good idea for a story!
But the student who brought me joy was Breanna.
She is from Honduras.
She speaks Spanish at home and English at school.
As I tell her and all of my bilingual students, “You have to be really smart to speak TWO languages.”
She smiles when I tell her that, a smile that warms my classroom as if it were the sun rising on an early spring day.
She loves to draw, and is quite gifted and talented as an artist.
One of the parts of the assignment was to draw and color a picture of the thing that was measured.
She had matched ‘3 inches’ with ‘The Length of a Crayon.’ She set out to create a picture of that crayon.
When our timer went off, she took me by the arm and led me to her table.
“Look at this crayon I drew and colored, Mr. Barton,” she said in her Spanish/English mix that endears her to me.
There on her poster was the likeness of a yellow crayon.
“Ah, Breanna, ¡Es magnifico! It’s terrific,” I said. “And yellow happens to be my favorite color.”
“I know, Mr. Barton, I know that yellow is your favorite color. That’s why I drew these pictures of the sun and a lemon, too. I drew them for you.”
She took out two exquisite pictures from her desk, one of a beautiful sunrise and the other of a bright lemon on a lemon tree, and gave them to me.
I gave her a fist bump.
What a gift they are.
What a gift she is.
All in a day in public school.
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