"I wish my teacher knew..." poignant notes from students

[marylander1940]

A third-grade teacher at a Denver elementary school decided to try to get to know her students better — most of whom come from low-income families — and gave them a writing assignment in which she hoped they would reveal something about themselves. Kyle Schwartz called the activity “I wish my teacher knew” — and she wound up learning more than she thought.

 

According to this story by ABC News, Schwartz, who teachers at Doull Elementary School, said:

 

“Ninety-two percent of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch. As a new teacher, I struggled to understand the reality of my students’ lives and how to best support them. I just felt like there was something I didn’t know about my students.”

 

She allowed students to write anonymously but found that most wanted to include their name and even share it with the class. She said:

 

“Some notes are heartbreaking like the first #iwishmyteacherknew tweet which read, ‘I wish my teacher knew I don’t have pencils at home to do my homework.’ I care deeply about each and every one of my students and I don’t want any of them to have to suffer the consequences of living in poverty, which is my main motivation for teaching.”

 

Schwartz posted some of the students’ work on Twitter under the hashtag #IWishMyTeacherKnew, and she urged other teachers to do the same thing. Here are some of the tweets posted by Schwartz as well as others.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/17/i-wish-my-teacher-knew-poignant-notes-from-students/

http://media.thedenverchannel.com/photo/2015/04/17/16x9/_I_wish_my_teacher_knew__leads_to_such_s_2840410000_16971780_ver1.0_640_480.jpg

 

http://8.petflowblog.isprimecdn.com/app/uploads/2015/04/134.png

 

 

 

http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/iwishmyteacherknew-665x385.jpg

 

http://insider.foxnews.com/sites/insider.foxnews.com/files/styles/780/public/Play.jpg?itok=xuYVqFBC

[bigvalboy]

speechless....

[+ sync]

A third-grade teacher at a Denver elementary school decided to try to get to know her students better — most of whom come from low-income families — and gave them a writing assignment in which she hoped they would reveal something about themselves. Kyle Schwartz called the activity “I wish my teacher knew” — and she wound up learning more than she thought.

 

An ideal outreach/research methodology.

[mike carey]

speechless....

 

+1 BVB

[marylander1940]

Thanks for posting on this thread, as the OP I would like to post a joke about it...I hope you'll enjoy it.

 

[bigvalboy]

Quite clever and quite funny Marylander...

[+ WilliamM]

Brava to the teacher. It is likely that some of the 3rd graders were able to write/speak honestly for the first times in their lives. I wonder what I would have written back in the third grade -- I had an exceptional good teacher, always very, very sorry that I never went back and told how much I appreciated her.

[marylander1940]

Quite clever and quite funny Marylander...

 

Actually I found out about it when I saw it on that show...

 

He should make a Wall Street version too, similar to Beverly Hills obviously but more into screwing people out of their money.