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Dear
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Start a Year-long Correspondence K-12 When teachers get passionate about something it gives students permission to get passionate too. Displaying our curiosity and on a regular basis in a letter is one of the best ways to charge up the batteries of your student's opinions. As the new school year begins, whatever the age level you teach, write a letter to your students. Before you begin, read the letter below which Gretchen Bernabei wrote to her 6th grade class. Write your own letter to your students about a problem you have struggled with. Raise questions like Gretchen does, suggest solutions, and most of all, ask your students to respond. Read your letter to the class and ask them to write back. Write back to them in a week. Create a year long correspondence. Dear Students, Today in class when I looked at your faces, I could picture you as young children. I imagined what you might have looked like when you were three years old. And when I tried to tell you about something that happened over the week-end, I couldn't finish. So I hope you will read this and know it comes from somewhere deep in my heart, to each one of you. It started Sunday, when Matilde was in her crib, taking a nap. I opened up the newspaper and saw the front page. There was a story about the little boy who was watching t.v. at home one night a couple of weeks ago. Both of his parents were there. There was a drive-by shooting, and a bullet went through the wall and shattered his arm. Do you know what he said? When he realized that something was very, very wrong? He said, "Oh, Daddy." Imagine. A shot had ripped apart his arm, and he took a breath and said, "Oh, Daddy." Take a little breath and say those words to yourself. "Oh, Daddy." Now imagine being a daddy. Imagine hearing shots outside and trying to tell your family to get down. And then you hear your little three-year-old son take a breath and say, "Oh, Daddy." Imagine doing all you can to protect your family and hearing one of your precious children say those words. Now imagine your own mother or father. Can you picture how they used to look at you, full of love, when you were three? Now can you imagine your mother's face when the doctors take you away from her? Whose family deserves that? Nobody's. Nobody's. Well, my heart ached for that little boy, for his daddy, for his mama, and for his three little sisters. I read that they had no home now. The mother and father had been sharing a little bed in the hospital. I stared at the newspaper, thinking about the extra room we have in our house. We don't have money, but I felt that we had so much, a safe house and a big yard. I felt like it might be crazy, and maybe they might not need it or want it, but I just felt like I had to offer to share what we have with them. Where would they go? So after talking it over with my husband David, a little later in the afternoon, I went to the only place I knew to find them. Matilde sat in her carseat, and I drove to the Santa Rosa Children's Hospital. I wasn't sure what to say to Leticia and Edward, but I had to go see them. Room 608, the information lady told me. I watched Matilde's face on the elevator. She was jabbering baby-talk as it went up, and we soon found room 608. I knocked on the door and heard "Come in." Leticia, the mother, turned and looked at me when I walked in. I could see that she was tired but beautiful. I glanced over at the patient with his arm up in the air, in traction. I really wasn't prepared for how he looked, even though I had seen his picture in the newspaper. In real life, he looked so tiny. Little Edward. His eyes were tired-sparkly, beautiful brown. His head turned to look at his mom, and his neck was so little on the pillow. His mother and I talked to each other for a few minutes, and she told me that they had found an apartment which they would be moving into soon. I told her that she and her family were welcome at our house if they needed it for a day, an afternoon, a week, whatever. We only talked for a few minutes about what it had been like that night. I gave her our phone number. As I left, I turned at the door. I wanted to say, "God bless you." My voice just wouldn't come out. So with Matilde in my arms, I closed the door. Do you know any three-year-olds? Do you know how it feels to put your arms around a little puppy-warm doll-body and hoist him or her up on your hip? How you run around acting insane to get them to laugh? Words are still new to a three-year-old mouth. You want to watch them living in a world of play, and laughing with the world from waking-up time until tucking-in time. That's cool. So now I think about gangs. Groups of friends? Friends who look out for you? That's not too bad. But people who pick up weapons and say that the law is bad? People who write F.T.P.? F.T.L.? Who hired these police? Who made these laws? We people did. You did. Your parents did. Their parents did. Who shot that three-year-old? All gang members did. Anyone who ever touches a gun and thinks it would be fun did. Anyone who ever stops thinking about other people's rights did. Every fifteen-year-old who mouths off at a teacher so he won't look like a wimp did. Every person who scribbles a gang name on a book-cover did. Every person who passes gang graffiti and doesn't stop to erase it did. We all had a part in pulling the trigger at Edward. Who can stop gang violence? We all can. But students, you more than anyone can. How? By knowing how uncool gangs are. Selfishness is not cool. It's not cool to hurt others. It's not cool to destroy. It's not cool to take. It's not cool to kill. Picture your mama's face. Picture your family members. Listen to the little voice taking a breath and saying, "Oh, Daddy." Listen to that voice, students. It's the voice of your own children. Let's join together to give, to make the world a better place, everywhere we go. No one is alone when we love each other. God bless you.
Love,
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