Play a vocab game and donate 20 grains of rice for every correct answer. Go on try it. You know you want to….

I’ve started reading a book called “There is No Me Without You: One woman’s odyssey, to rescue her country’s children.” by Melissa Fay Greene. I’m only four chapters in but so far I am really liking this book. I tend to gravitate towards books in the “social justice” genre. Books that are written by journalists who live the life of the subject they are writing about such as “There are No Children Here“, “Ordinary Resurrections“, and “Among School Children“. This book is one of those.

The problem with reading those books is I usually read them and get frustrated, angry, sad, and fed-up with “The Man“. What ever the issue is in the book I want to be able to help. I end up slamming the book shut on the last page and start thinking, “how can I fix this?” and then get more frustrated because I can’t.

This book has lots of statistics in it that show the plight of Ethiopia and it’s people. And this while reading, I feel the sense of urgency that this is a country in need and for once, I am actually doing something to help.

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A couple weeks ago we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday in my classroom. It was a very eye-opening lesson for our kids. I started by talking about racism and injustice. We did an activity to try and explain segregation. I put a circle of masking tape on the floor and all of the kids whose names started with the letter “S” had to stand in the circle. The rest of the class got to pick whatever toys they wanted to play with, play where they wanted, basically had free-reign over the room. The kids in the circle could only stand there. (I’ve never heard the phrase “but that’s not fair” said so many times or with so many syllables.) But it got the point across - it wasn’t fair that they couldn’t do what the other kids did, just because of their name. It really helped them realize how unfair racism is (they couldn’t chose their name, just like you can’t chose your skin color).

Then I read them the book Martin’s Big Words. It’s a great book that explains what Dr. King did for America as well as give a brief biography. The kids have never sat so still while listening to a book. After it was over the questions started: Why did they bomb his house? Why did they shoot him? Why do some white people like him and some hate him? Who shot him? Was he scared? and on and on and on. They were great questions from kindergarteners. I was really proud of them. For about a week after Marting Luther King Day, they asked me to read the book every day. And I did. It’s dropped down to an every other day request, but almost 3 weeks later they are still talking about how Dr. King “was really smart” and “a really nice man”.

It’s hard to put into words how emotional and passionate the class got while discussing his life and asking questions about him. They really understood the injustice and what Dr. King was trying to accomplish. They talked about things that they don’t think are fair in their lives. They talked about how they wished he were still alive today.

Read. Pray. Help.

I found this game online tonight. Ben has cancer and because of that was able to have a wish granted through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. His wish was to create a game where kids got to battle cancer cells. He felt it would help other kids like him be able to deal with battling real-life cancer better. I think it’s cool that he used his wish to help other kids like him.

Last night at youth group (yes, I went to youth group on a sick day) we met with our small groups to discuss social justice. We are preparing the kids to do the 30 hr. famine and to go on a mission trip to South Dakota this summer. Anyway, I work the the Jr. High girls and I was really impressed by the discussion we had. One of the girls commented that she felt helpless because she didn’t have any money to buy food or clothes to donate or to sponsor a child. From there they started discussing ways that they could help that didn’t involve money. It was amazing the ideas that they had. This is what they came up with:

Playing “Bigger and Better” with food. Basically, you start with one item, like a piece of bread, and you knock on the first door and say “I have a piece of bread, can you give me food that is bigger or better?” and the person will give you a can of corn or something. Then you take that to the next house and so on and so on. They thought it would be a fun way to collect food for a food pantry.

They want to help clean up in a poor area of town. They want to go to an area, clean up all the trash, wash off graffitti, plant flowers, etc. with the help of the people in the neighborhood.

They are going to start donating some of their own clothes. Everytime they buy something new they are going to get rid of something they haven’t worn in a while.

These are just a few of the ideas they came up with. It was fun to see how excited they became when they realized there were ways they would be able to help.

If anyone has any other ideas that 6th - 8th grade girls could do, let me know.