My Students Are....

Last week was tough. A recent cheating incident exposed that fact that some students at our school are cheating by digitally photographing final exams using cells phones and even breaking into classrooms afterhours. Needless  to say, many teachers (incuding me!) were quite disillusioned, and the morale at school the lowest I've seen in years.

Then, something shifted. As a journal assignment, in tandum with the setting of New Year's intentions, I asked students to make a list of 43 things they want to do before they die. And what did I find?

I found hope. Because, with a list like this, you have to think: If these kids are in charge of the world, it might not end up being such a bad place, afterall.

Note: This image found on "Google Images", and I can't recover the source. This isn't a photo of my students! (see comments)

Writing prompt: List 43 things you want to do before you die:

My students are techey:

Win an argument against Bill Gates

Have an article about me in wikipedia

Decorate my ipod with real diamonds.

Learn how to light a fire all by myself

Create a car that is powered by solar light

My students are caring:

Be able to protect the ones I care about

Make friends who would die for me and for whom I would die.

Help my parents when they grow old and need my help.

Feed all stray animals in the city.

Educate women of poverty on issues of birth control, diseases, STD’s, protection, etc…

My students want to change the world

Discover an alternate source of clean energy

Figure out how stem cells work

Take part in a protest

Create a medicine that makes people to live forever

Create a perpetual engine (generator) to end the energy crisis

Save one human life

Find one true purpose and serve it.

Die saving another’s life

Die serving a purpose, whether it’s mine or somebody else’s

Create a new and inspiring theory

My student are bold:

Jump down from the top of the Petronas tower.

Fight a sumo wrestler

Hike through a jungle, armed only with a machete

Spend a week with cannibals.

Bungee jump off the

Golden Gate

Bridge

.

See a ghost.

Be in 2 places at the same time.

Do 32 consecutive fouettes (turns on one leg)

Prank call the president of the

U.S.

My students are romantic:

Get an engagement ring from Tiffany’s

Ride a gondola in

Venice

with the love of my life

Meet Prince William and Henry

Not get married until I’m at least 35

Get married to a hot hot guy when I’m about 27.

Date Angelina Jolie

Have a debate where I prove that Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate love story of all time.

My students think outside of the box:

Make the whole world still for 30 minutes (except me of course.)

Swim in jello

Fly in the sky with two huge wings.

Prove fairies exist.

Travel to

Neptune

Have an 80’s rock-star (example: Van Halen) hairdo.

Have an alien as a girlfriend

Travel through time to meet religious leaders (Buddha, Jesus) and check to see if they really have supernatural powers.

My students are humorous:

Ride an ostrich to

Austria

Unleash my inner ninja.

Walk in stiletto heels for about 5 blocks.

Go up to Paris Hilton and tell her that I think she’s shallow

My students are honest

Stop desiring a perfect life: face reality.

Be someone’s fear.

Have anyone that has done something bad to me come to my feet kneeling down on their knees apologizing with tears.

Punch someone who really deserves it

My students are international:

Go back to

Saudi Arabia

, where I was born.

Meet my favorite Bollywood stars and cricketers and get their autographs.

Get a tattoo that says “beauty” or “light” in Arabic

Run all the way from one end the

Great Wall of China

to the other

Drink vodka in

Moscow

, smoke a cigar in

Cuba

, eat some Peking duck in

Beijing

My students are unique:

Learn elfish writing

Wear a Roman soldier’s uniform.

Have 10 body guards

Do magic.

Own a pet penguin

My students want to explore their world:

See and feel snow.

Dive for oysters

Learn to read ancient writings.

Knock on a door in every country I visit, and talk my way into a home cooked meal.

Catch a lobster with my own hands in the ocean.

Touch a wild shark.

Travel

Europe

with my friends wearing only the clothes on our backs

Have a collection of sand form all the beaches in the world.

Knock on a door in every country I visit, and talk my way into a home cooked meal.

My students are introspective:

Laugh in a different way, maybe more lady-like, a giggle maybe?

Meditate for a whole day alone in a quiet forest

Be able to decide things and not regret it afterwards.

Figure myself out

Meditate in a monastery for three months.

Find the meaning of life

Make an unbreakable oath- something about righteousness, close to the end of my life, of course

Comments

[Hyacinth]

Your students are wonderful and horrible all at once, aren't they? Just like the rest of us. With you as their teacher they will grow and learn that short-cuts like cheating won't get them where they really want to go. They are so lucky to have you in their world!

[bluest eyes]

wow, that made me think abou what I'd had written at their age. but maybe what's more important: what would I write today? and would it make that difference?

having kids is definitely on it. and wishing them to have a teacher like you.

Thanks for keepning "Shamash says" a place to find new answers...and questions!

[shamash]

Hyacinth: I like what you write: "Your students are wonderful and horrible all at once, aren't they? Just like the rest of us."

I would add "Just like all of humanity!" We all have the capacity for great good, and the capacity for great harm.

Reading this writing assignment made me feel so much better; it knocked me out of a bad, bad case of disillusionment. And that was not a fun place to be, especially for this little, ole' idealist! :-)

[Pups]

Things do turn around, even in the worst of times. And I agree with your comment about capacity for good and harm.....

But Shamash, I would consider taking the picture off the website. Perhaps the parents have signed off on this, and of course, you are not in the States, but there is always a concern for using identifyable photographs even without names. The last district I was in had a policy about this that applied to postings by teachers even on non-school websites. Just a word of caution.

[shamash]

Hi, Pups!

Don't worry, these aren't my kids, even though the background, etc... looks just like our school, and just like our students.

I googled "high school students" in images and this was one of the first hits.

If I find the source again I'll re-post, giving it credit.

Thanks for the "heads up".

My personal philosophy is this: never post in the public domain identifying digital imagery that I have taken on my camera of any person without their expressed consent.

And,it's what I teach my students in "Netiquette". :-)

As for digital imagery out there in cyberspace: well, finding its source can be next to impossible!

[Dalownerx3]

Not to sound too cynical, but how do you know your students did not copy the list of things to do from the Internet. ;)

[shamash]

Well, they didn't know about "43 things" (the website) until after they handed in their hand-written, in-class assignment! :-)

Some students will cheat, no matter what, just like some adults cheat, no matter what.
My responsibility as a teacher is to create an environment that reduces their chances to do so.

I'm moving on... and am sick of the subject of "cheating"... It seems as though it's all that people talk about at our school these days, and there's so much MORE to education than cheating!!!!

There's so much MORE to living life than spending all the time discussing crime.
Plus, it's depressing, boring, and mind-numbing.

I'd much rather spend time discussing creativity.

[Jeremy]

Interesting note about "cheating" on 43 Things -- the entire site is geared toward the sharing of goals. You're supposed to find goals on someone else's list and copy them. It's a much different focus than the hoarding and protecting of information we think is so important in assessing "learning" in school.

Wonderful post, Shamash.