Meester Meester

I got an email from my father today letting me know the Dominican Republic baseball team won the World Championship. I am very happy for them (even though I pull for the Puerto Rican team) because I know my former students must be celebrating. I thought about them a lot today.

They were my first students. My first class was 6 at risk Dominican students. That group of students made me love teaching. They had very difficult lives living in Boston far away from their families. The culture shock. Some were borderline illiterate. But what they lacked in "education" they made up in passion, energy, character, and humor. I learned patience with them. I learned how to pick my battles with them. I learned that no matter how tough things get- there is reason to smile. Every good teaching quality I have comes from those students. The 6th graders, followed by the high schoolers, and my last two years in Boston with the 7th and 8th graders taught me more than any experience I have had.

I chose this picture because: 1 it is about baseball and 2. it is about my students. I played catch with my students after school with that glove. And I wore one of those hats while a student who forgot theirs wore the other one when we had games. The baseball in the glass container is a game ball autographed by my last group of students at C.G.S. That ball is priceless to me. One of the students who signed it could barely write his name when I first met him. And on my last day he autographed it in his best writing.

I am very thankful for the wonderful students I have now. But I am thankful for where I come from. If it was not for my Dominican and Puerto Rican "savage" students- I would not be where I am today.