Learning moments....

I wrote about some teaching moments the other day and thought it fair to share some things I have learned from the kids. One young man was telling me about his farm work on the weekends when he has to hook up the wagon to the tractor and pull some containers into town to fill up on water. I asked if the farm didn't have running water and he said they use a well...well, said I, can't they fill the tanks from the well? He laughed and indicated they could but very quickly, the well would run dry. They go into town and buy 1400 gallons for $9. and this is used for the animals and the crops.

And as to why there are tons of sugar beets on the road some days and not on others...the weather determines how many tons of beets are harvested. They won't keep very long in warmish 50 degree weather so the sugar factories put out a call for x tons to be delivered from area farms. It has gotten much colder in the past few days so the sugar factory in Sebewaing has sugar beet mountains and I must have passed 50 trucks hauling more to dump.

I subbed in architectural design/drafting and here are a couple of Murphy's Laws, applied to that discipline:

You will always forget at least one critical dimension on your drawing.

The smaller the circle being drawn, the greater the chanceof your cmpass point slipping off dead center.

Fun.

A young Bad Axe graduate, 21, is in a coma and has been since accident night. One young man had gone to see this patient with his older brother who was the accident victim's best buddy for years. The kids talked about what went wrong from the moment the kid made his first mistake: drinking and getting into a car with another drunk. He didn't put his seatbelt on but the driver did. The driver is out of the hospital, facing charges, car totalled and his buddy possibly never regaining consciousness. The kids were open, honest, cried, and hugged each other. In these small communities, everyone knows everyone else OR is related to them.

Interestingly, I had one of the teachers come hunt me down in another room to ask if I would come back to his class this Monday. I agree and he made it happen and the principal came into my criminal justice 1/2 day program to ask if I had any special plans for the afternoon. I didn't, so covered another class. Nice that they appear to enjoy me as much as I am enjoying this school. I am reminded why I loved to teach.