Entry number twenty-four reminds me a lot of Upward Bound (UB) with that the teacher did with the class. At UB, there is a rule called the 'no-dis policy', where students are not allowed to discount themselves or their peers. In a nut shell, it helps to keep the students thinking positively and fosters an incredible environment. In my classroom I hope to keep the same kind of positive atmosphere, and I am a firm believer that in front of students it is necessary to be 100% positive 100% of the time.
As I read through these entries I think to myself, "How am I supposed to relate to any of these? They are seemingly all about attempted and completed suicide, drug use by parents, abuse, etc..." Those types of situations are nothing I have ever experienced in the classroom, and although I am sure I will need to some day, I hope I can provide the appropriate assistance. Many of these students who we will be teaching will have incredible backgrounds that we will would not even have been able to imagine. I got a taste of that this summer working at UB. I had a student in my class who had moved all the way up the east coast from Florida and was seventeen years old and in her sophomore year of high school. She sent me pictures of where she lived and it was practically a single wide trailer placed in a field with a long dirt driveway. Thankfully her work ethic was phenomenal, and she new she needed to work hard to get good grades and go onto college to get a good education. However, a majority of the student we teach, we will be unaware of their backgrounds and will need to always be accepting and understanding of the challenges they might be facing.
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