Today is Mariyambee's birthday. She is a uniquely gifted and loving child. Mariyambee skipped a grade this year as it was the only way to keep her enrolled at Rising Star; her mother had decided to withdraw her and her brother Basha from school. I was worried that she wouldn't be able to keep up, but she has since risen to the top of the class in some subjects.
This is what she wrote in her journal a few days ago. She was anticipating her birthday and loves the fact she shares it with a dear friend of mine who also happens to have volunteered at Rising Star two years ago.
Our fourth-graders have an assignment to write in their journals on most school days. It has been so gratifying for me to get to read all of these, and to see vast improvement over the past year. Basha, who is featured below, was not able to write a single sentence unassisted as recently as last summer. It is beautiful to witness how even children who have been neglected for years can and do learn. Now he comes up with the following:
This particular question was rather open-ended: "What do you like to write about?" His beginning is a bit scattered, touching on computers and house-building before he settles on his topic. He wants to help people who have no hands and no legs.
Basha's father has leprosy and had a leg amputated last year. Many of their neighbors in the leprosy colony have no hands.
And the art that accompanies this journal entry, Basha's rendition of the "helping van."
The children must wonder why their journals are sometimes returned to them with little salty water marks speckled across the pages.
This is what she wrote in her journal a few days ago. She was anticipating her birthday and loves the fact she shares it with a dear friend of mine who also happens to have volunteered at Rising Star two years ago.
Our fourth-graders have an assignment to write in their journals on most school days. It has been so gratifying for me to get to read all of these, and to see vast improvement over the past year. Basha, who is featured below, was not able to write a single sentence unassisted as recently as last summer. It is beautiful to witness how even children who have been neglected for years can and do learn. Now he comes up with the following:
This particular question was rather open-ended: "What do you like to write about?" His beginning is a bit scattered, touching on computers and house-building before he settles on his topic. He wants to help people who have no hands and no legs.
Basha's father has leprosy and had a leg amputated last year. Many of their neighbors in the leprosy colony have no hands.
And the art that accompanies this journal entry, Basha's rendition of the "helping van."
The children must wonder why their journals are sometimes returned to them with little salty water marks speckled across the pages.
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