What we're up against...

A student came to me the other day and asked me if she could leave her project in my room because she didn't want anything to happen to it. She seemed very proud. It was a simple cardboard box covered with brown paper. Inside the box sand was glued to the bottom of the box. There were paper cutouts of people colored with crayons. Also a large cutout of a cactus and two cardboard houses at either end of the box. The student had a quote from a book on the outside of her box along with her name, also boldly drawn in crayon. This was the extent of her project... I remember doing this sort of "book report" in the first grade. This student was in the 11th grade. This is what we're up against. While I study how to import and export files to my website, my students are working with cardboard!! Perhaps its just that time of year when the end is so close that everything seems bleak. Now to be fair, many of the teachers here at my school have set much higher standards as part of the restructuring that is taking place at my school. However, I want to emphasize that this student was proud of this work. We have so much we must do to bring the classrooms of Tennessee up to the level of expectations of the 21st century. Though I have certainly had my own difficulties in 486, I know how far I've come and how far I must go. Now to just help my students embrace the possibilities, because they have so very far to go.