Adults are idiots

Today during ELL club after school we had a game day. We just completed the state mandated test and my kids deserved a break. I set up a bunch of educational centers/games for the kids to choose and rotate through. It was such a fun time to talk, laugh and just have fun together.

During the rotation, one of my sweet students, a refugee from Tanzania, found himself among the building blocks. This particular set of blocks had 10 blocks of graduated sizes. The intent of the set was to build upon the largest block (10) building a strong foundation which would support all of the other smaller blocks (9-1) placed upon it. I was working with another group on a vocabulary game and watching this student out of the corner of my eye. I heard the blocks come crashing to the floor after he repeatedly tried to build the tower with the smallest block as the foundation. The teacher in me leaped at the opportunity to teach him a little something about foundations and building. I explained to him that you need to place the largest block on the bottom to form a good foundation/base to build upon. He nodded in agreement, as his English responses are still quite limited, and kept building the way he had been before (smallest block on bottom followed by all of the larger blocks piled atop). I smiled thinking, "Oh...he must not have understood me--oh well, he'll learn soon enough that this WILL NEVER work."

Before I knew it he was at my side demanding my attention. I gazed over to where he had been building and was shocked to see a tower standing tall built upon the smallest block.

He did it. I told him he couldn't do it, but he did. I couldn't hide how proud of him I was. I danced around the room and demanded that no one knock the tower down. I ran to grab my phone to snap a photo of this phenomena. That's what I'm going to call it--phenomena. What was it really? A boy, who chose to ignore an adult and kept trying something he thought he could make happen. I hope this boy never loses this zest for learning and for life. I can't wait to see and hear where his heart takes him in this life. There is no doubt that he has the cards stacked against him, but he showed me today that he doesn't care. He is going to make something of himself. How blessed am I to be able to be his teacher and to learn from him.

Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. If you put your mind to it, surely you can turn towers upside down.

I learned a valuable lesson today. A lesson I will not soon forget.