Mining For Hidden Gems

Yair arrived on the first day of school from rural México and left to go back to his village on Friday. He was my student for 54 days. He had the sweetest smile and an enthusiastic spirit. He was eager to participate in whatever conversations we were having, always raising his hand to say something. What did he learn in our classroom that he can take with him into his future? It happens from time to time,  more in some schools than others. Children enter our classrooms, are with us for a few weeks, few months and then life takes them away to the next school, next town or even the next country. The realization that there are kids who may not come back to class tomorrow gives me the urgency to focus on teaching skills that will serve them for life. What do I hope Yair learned in the eleven weeks he was here? I hope he learned that reading is the most powerful tool he can possess, that his stories, his thoughts and opinions matter, that it is important to learn to express those thoughts a