loving my job

the best thing this morning...we read the poem "no mirrors in my nana's house," by Ysaye Barnwell. i know it from singing it in community choir when i was in high school, so we listened to the version by Sweet Honey in the Rock. my first period class has a good portion of positive, outspoken, confident black girls (and a few black boys) who really contribute a lot to the class. they often carry the class along with their enthusiasm--i can't take the credit for the amazing community that has developed in that morning class. anyways, they were all soooo into the poem/song. they asked me to play it over again. two of my boys (both black) got up and were dancing. everyone was smiling and laughing. i couldn't help myself--i smiled and laughed, also. seriously, it was the middle of class, 9:10 am on a tuesday, and two boys were up doing all these funny dances together. (they are good friends). i wish i could have captured it on on video, because it was AMAZING. one girl who is in the school choir asked me to play it yet AGAIN once the students got started on the related activity. we were singing together (well, i have no voice right now so i wasn't singing, but i tried) and it was basically the cutest thing ever. i loved it!

my afternoon class, on the other hand....i got really mad at these boys for laughing while i played the song, and then i basically had to sit back and realize that they are teenage boys, they are immature, and they felt nervous so they laughed because they didn't know what else to do. i guess it's rough being a teenage boy. i wish we had some more girls in that class...sigh...

hopefully my voice is on its way back. that would be nice! it's time for me to hit the sack.