mertc's blog

At the Blackburn Nursery School I am working with the second youngest class which is the two to three-year-olds. It is their second semester now and all of the kids show dramatic growth since I saw them at the beginning of last year. They have learned to play with each other without snatching (for the most part) and are good participants in the class’ activities. All except Howard. Howard is not the naughty kid, nor the kid that can’t talk, nor does he require more special attention than the others but for some reason he struggles to play with the teachers or the children.

During his first few weeks back in September his mother stayed by his side at all times and whenever she left she would come running back if she heard a cry. Other mothers also stayed by their children so that they could adjust but to me it seemed that it was this mother having a harder time letting go than Howard.

Last Friday Howard came to the playground where we all play for the first half hour of class time. It was cold but the children were keeping warm by running around the playground. Howard stood there shivering in his favorite purple shirt. I have never seen him  in a different shirt. His mother tells him to put on his coat because it is cold outside. He refuses. Without much of an argument she quickly says that if he puts his coat on, after class she will get him a surprise. A new (toy) car. One he doesn’t have and she knows he wants.

The next day in class after reading McDermott and Varenne’s ‘Culture as Disability,’ the class was asked to line up across the classroom to show how strongly they agreed with a statement. One corner was declared the corner for those that strongly agree and the other was for those that strongly disagree. The statement was to the affect of ‘disability only exists because of culture.’ The class moved over to strongly agree. Those closer to the middle wavered tentatively. For me, it isn’t obvious.

Chapter One: Megan learns that schools can be shut down when they are too small and she is forced to move schools. 
Chapter Two: Megan attends English public school and spends most of her time pretending to twist her ankle at playtime to escape the cold outside
Chapter Three: Megan moves to the U.S. and learns the ‘Pledge of Allegiance.
Chapter Four: Megan goes to her first summer camp.
Chapter Five: Megan enrols at a Steiner school.
Chapter Six: Megan goes to ‘Hawk Circle’ with her class to learn how to survive in the wild.
Chapter Seven: Megan joins the ‘Midnight Run’ and is awakened to how the homeless live.
Chapter Eight: Megan does a ‘study abroad’ in Paris during her sophomore year of high-school.
Chapter Nine: Megan visits ‘Camphill’ which is a Steiner community and school for severely mentally handicapped children and adults. 
Chapter Ten: Megan writes a letter to a teacher after finding a class the teacher taught to be inappropriate and incorrect and the teacher redoes the class the next day. 
Chapter Eleven: Megan does shoemaking for her senior project and learns a trade.
Chapter Twelve: Megan learns in her Emily Balch Seminar Freshmen year from another student that the idea of being ‘color-blind’ is not a good thing like her all-white environment had previously taught her.

Chapter Thirteen: Megan learns that not everyone thinks that a Liberal Arts education is a good thing, or even the idea of going to college. She struggles with the privilege of these opportunities.

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