Positive Thinking Thursday: Perseverance

Today, not only did my students learn about the significance of 9/11 and how we unite together on this day as a country to remember the innocent lives of heroes and civilians we have lost, but we learned about the word PERSEVERANCE.

Perseverance is not only applicable to individuals when they are facing difficulties, but it is shown as a nation when we unite together as one to OVERCOME obstacles that life brings.

I asked students to create a K-W-L chart on 9/11. Then, we drew a line underneath our K-W-L charts because I wanted students to see what they knew and wanted to know about the word "perseverance" and how they thought this would relate to 9/11.

It is teachable moments like today that brings chills to every being in my body because I see my students make text-to-self and text-to-world connections on a lesson that is not part of our content standards nor part of our curriculum: being human, having compassion, being empathetic to people's differences, being kind to one another, and treating people with respect. I'm not here to preach...I PROMISE! I just happened to see Mrs. Laffin's Laughings link party on positive thinking Thursday and thought how appropriate this was today was for me and my students.  Today, my students were able to see a bigger picture and apply not only what it means to NOT give up in the classroom when lessons and concepts become difficult, but they were able to understand HOW a country rebuilds itself and how our presidents NEVER gave up their search for the terrorist group that did this to our country. They understood the sacrifice our soldiers, nurses, policemen, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons made to bring justice and peace to our country.

At the end of my mini Project GLAD unit on 9/11 and the word perseverance, I left students with the following quote that I made from my Rhonda app on my iPhone:

And so I leave you with the same quote and thought. Sometimes that arrow pulling us back is someone else, or an obstacle, but sometimes our biggest enemy is ourselves. I asked my students to imagine if our President and soldiers gave up their search for Al Qaeda and Bin Laden and to predict what they thought would happen if as a nation we just did nothing. "You don't defeat your enemies" or "You don't move forward" were some of their responses. 

These were all coming from my little 8 year olds. Sometimes, I think I'm a teacher so that I, TOO, am still learning from my little kiddos with BIG hearts and souls what it's like to be HUMAN.