Goodbye Cumberland High

           This past week was my final week spent at Cumberland High, which means it was also my final week to learn more about my chosen student, Jackson. On Monday, the critical lens responses were due from all of my classes. I was excited to read Jackson's since I knew many of the prompts regaring "weak" people in society or whether or not sociciety or the individual is at fault for discrimination would peak his interest. Not to my surprise Jackson handed in a penomenal paper, which utterly blew my mind. To see a tenth grader using words such as "old-stock American" and homosexuals oppsed to simply writting gay people made me truly realize the immense amount of knowledge this student holds. When I shared his paper at group discussions during class both my group members were both amazed that a high school student could produce that type of work. Although it may appear that Jackson may have spent a lot of time on this I beleive that what he wrote was simply knowledge off the top of his head. The way Jackson speaks in class is in a very mature an extremely educated and aware manner. To catch his interest and allow him to write on historical or societal issues propably comes second nature to him.

           On my last day with my honors classes I conducted a Socratic Seminar for the very first time, which went amazing! One of the questions brought up during discussion of Of Mice and Men was, "If there was another mentally disabled person on the ranch besides Lennie, would the ranch-workers have been more accepting?" While many students said yes, Jackson pointed out that although Lennie would not be the only mentally disabled one anymore that he would still fall into the minority category and would henceforth still be discriminated against and oppressed. This lead into a more broader discussion of the inequalities of society. Many students exressed there belief that people are treated equal today and that laws no longer allow for segregation between whites and blacks. Jackson butted in by claiming that "there is a big difference between legal equality and societal equality." Although this was something that I always knew I never was able to articulate it in such straight forward understandable terms. The societal awarenss that Jackson possesses is truly impressive yet makes me wonder if he speaks with such knowledge in other classes, such as science or math. History is his forte and luckily enough for English teachers it is easy to incorporate historical or societal like elements into our content. Although my time with Jackson has come to an end I know that he has great things to come for him in the future and will make something of himself. I could see him becoming a great politician!

          On a side note, my first seminar went great and lead me to have some what of an epiphany. After hearing responses on hot topics, such as if mercy-killings are acceptable and whatnot, I truly realized that I really do have so much to learn from my students just as they learn from me. While I thought it was acceptable for George to kill Lennie in Of Mice and Men other students did not and backed up their reasoning by their deeply rooted strong morals that are engraved within them. I'm so impressed by some of the students and the maturity levels that they are on at such a young age in life.