talking with middle schoolers about important issues

A glimpse into chats with my sister and my sister's day at school (This year she is teaching 7th grade science. For the next 7 days, she has a guest speaker talking about sex). Also revealed is how easily I am distracted when I should be working.

12:19 PM me: how is it going

9 minutes

12:28 PM Colleen: fine

right now is advisory

12:29 PM we're talking about the jena 6

me: cool

Colleen: but most don't seem to care

12:30 PM they're like "but that's all the way in louisiana"

and i don't know what kind of lesson plans to do about it

12:31 PM they told us it was required to talk about this week in adivsory

me: could be historical - about civil rights movement - about movements in Bay Area

me: I have a lot of articles from my social movements class

I just forwarded you a message with ideas for teaching about the jena 6

12:37 PM the Southern Poverty Law center website also has a yearly map of hate groups, plus reports on hate crimes

12:38 PM i love tolerance.org and they have a ton of resources for teachers, including activities and lesson plans, http://www.tolerance.org/teach/index.jsp

12:39 PM ok I have to get back to finishing my presentation for class tonight

xo

6 minutes

12:46 PM Colleen: oh good this class is good with him

my ELD class was terrible

me: I am sure he is used to it

12:47 PM Colleen: eh he looked pretty frazzled

12:48 PM and said it was pretty unique that i had a whole class of non-english speakers

12:50 PM me: does he have a good presentation?

Colleen: decent i guess

the kids like it

right now he's getting them to say sex on the count of 3

12:51 PM and making a big show about it

me: it's like the penis game

Colleen: yeah exactly

12:54 PM me: Lisa said in her 9th grade health class they had to chant "NO PENIS" over and over

Colleen: ha

was it catholic girls school?

me: yep

Colleen: that's fun

12:56 PM me: you have to take notes of all of his lessons for me

all the good stuff.