Beach Bound

This week has felt like it has dragged on forever. Not in a bad way, it just feels as though we have been in school forever. I am getting more comfortable in the classroom and with my kids. My three little fourth graders are darling... Well, two are the sweetest (and funniest) kids ever and one likes to drive me up a wall by saying nonsense answers even when she knows the right one.

"M, where would the Indians have gone fishing when they first came to California?"
"The pool."
"Ok, where in nature could they have gone fishing?"
"The pool."
"M..."
"The pool! That's where they went fishing!"

Drives me mad, but usually one of the other two will pipe in and go "the river!" Thank you, fourth graders.

I have had a couple conversations this week with my teacher about there students, where they come from, what their home life is like, and it is really interesting and overwhelming to get background on my students. I have three students from Yemen, five who are African-American, two who are Vietnamese, one who is Latina/Italian (my un-favorite... because I don't have favorites. Definitely not. No way.), and one who I believe is Hispanic but that might not be correct. And my teacher is not white, but she grew up in San Jose and lives in San Francisco now and grew up going to Catholic school, so the culture of an inner-city school is about as foreign to her as it is to me. It's hard to hear that half of our students (6 of 12) are WAY below grade level, and of those six, 5 come from single-parent homes and the other has a learning disability... There are so many stories and so many heart-breaking situations that these 10- and 11-year olds have already gone through, it's really hard to imagine what their lives are like and will continue to be like.

My highlight of the week was the opportunity to go with Liz, Caty, and Margo to tour... The Facebook headquarters! Liz has a friend from home who's boyfriend works there, and they met over Christmas break and he offered to give her and three others a tour! So we traveled down to Menlo Park yesterday and got to see the place. Those employees are SO spoiled, it's a little crazy... But they all know it and try to be really humble about it. It makes me a little jealous of Alison Wilbur, future Amazon.com employee, and the others I know (aka my sister) going into the field of technology, where there is MONEY and lots of it.

A lot of our group is off to the ocean tonight... I cannot wait :) We have been to the bay but this is our first time to the actual coast... Score :)