This week we experienced a convergence of curriculum that was somewhat magical in my world. We’ve been reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park and throughout the book the class has been taking notes; either short reflections of their own or more recently sketchnoting (where they combine drawings/doodles with text to convey meaning). The main character’s name is Salva and our conversations often connected him to another character we read about earlier in the year, Kek from Home of The Brave by Katherine Applegate. From that the children were able to understand how HOPE kept Salva going; how family is a powerful force in one’s life and how gratitude might be something we don’t express enough.

We are also studying/designing water filters in our latest science unit so there’s a deeper understanding of the dangers of contaminated water among my 5th graders. This, I believe helped them develop empathy for the people we were reading about. Following Salva’s journey and having conversations around his transformation from a scared child to a strong leader had us concentrating on the character strength of perseverance. How did Salva’s uncle teach this to him? How did his uncle’s mantra (One step at a time) help him to survive? I asked my students to write a blog post on the following questions:

• How might Salva’s philosophy help you in your life?
• Why is perseverance so important?
• How can you better develop the ability to persevere?

The posts are due today. I can’t wait to share them in class.

Another unexpected beautiful moment occurred when Dr. Qadir came in this week for his Expert Lecture. He didn’t know about the work we were doing in class, but his talk fit in perfectly. He talked to the children about his love of mountain climbing. He brought in some of his gear and showed breath taking photos of the places he’s travelled to and the mountains he’s climbed.  At the start of his talk he said, “The mountain taught me how to take one step at a time.” So many little heads turned and looked at me with surprise and recognition as if to say, “Him too?”

Sometimes it happens intentionally, when books we choose to read aloud have great connections to curriculum, and sometimes the planets align just right. Of course I knew there would be connections, I just never expected them to be so powerful. I was sad that the book ended, however the conversations have not. We are watching Salva Dut’s TEDx Talk today in class and my students are talking about their end of year capstone projects. Yesterday’s conversation started with, “do we have to just research something, or can we actually DO something?” Mic drop, screen fades to black…I’ll keep you posted.