More student stories

Today was my higher level English class. They are all older elementary school children and, although they are considered higher level, I don't see much difference between their speaking and vocabulary abilities and my lowest level class.

The topic for today was Slavery. Yes, deep. They had to read several excerpts about slavery in general and specific events. Then their project assignment (in-class) was to discuss and write down the various hardships and suffering slaves experienced. Then they were to make up a song about the slaves' struggles.

They came up with:

-Being killed (We'd learned about one particular trip when 133 sick slaves were thrown overboard so the ship's owner could get the insurance money for "destroyed cargo.")
--The reason this was bad was because it was "unfair." Yes, kids....that IS one thing that was unfair about slavery....but can you think of ANYTHING else that as unfair????
-Having to wear "only underwear" all the time--which was embarrassing (I have no idea exactly where this came from, but this was right next to the "being killed" entry.)
-Being homeless (I think they meant homesick, but not sure)
-No good food

No mention of slaves being sold, traded, used, beaten, forced into ignorance (punishing those who showed they were trying to learn), or any of the other things we had discussed. The underwear, homeless, and bad food ideas were ALL from somewhere else.

And that was about it.
There were two groups....one group's song made no sense at all. The other group's song was....well....this (sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star):

"If you kill slaves then you have no slaves
and you need slaves
so why do you kill slaves?"

That was only the first part, but I couldn't help but feel that maybe the kids had missed the point of today's lessons.

On a slightly unrelated note....it bothers me when the know-it-all girl in my class tries to "interpret" what another student is trying to say because her speaking/vocabulary/grammar is horrible. She uses bigger words to impress but almost never uses them correctly. Many times she does this even after I've understood the original student's question. She usually interrupts by saying, "What her mean is...." and then a string of mispronounced, oddly placed words.