RAP: Educators Make It Happen

Wow! I hope your Read Around the Planet connections are going as well as mine. Of course there are glitches along the way (bad cables, fog days, etc.), but overall the student exchanges are top notch quality learning experiences.

This morning I was moved almost to tears listening to kindergarten students in Dowagiac, MI sing to students in NY. “We will lift up this world, higher and higher; light up this world brighter and brighter, we will plant gardens, we lift up this world to peace!”

Last Friday I chuckled at some alliterations shared between one of our classes and another in Texas. The student teacher on our end walked the students in TX through the process of writing an alliteration. This alliteration helps you realize the effect of state testing on students:

Today Tierra tackled the TAKS test.

Seeing students smiling, singing and laughing is the reward of hours and hours of behind-the-scenes labor on the part of coordinators and techs. Emails, test calls, coordinating details, helping teachers prepare, and smoothing the way. Teachers have stepped in to do their presentation twice when another teacher was in need. Coordinators have stepped in to solve problems created by the computer match this year. So many people have gone the extra mile to make RAP successful. As Sue Porter, TWICE RAP Coordinator, said to me last week, “All these kids are going to have wonderful connections, and they’ll never know that the rest of us don’t have hair anymore!!”

For more RAP stories, check out these reports from Paul Hieronymous, Andrea Israeli, and Roxanne Glaser.

I’m amazed and delighted and thrilled to see the efforts of so many educators (4000+?) who have put in hours and hours to make sure kids aren’t disappointed. The flexibility, patience, and enthusiasm of everyone is wonderful to behold. Our kids are in good hands!

Thanks Roxanne for the Cat in the Hat picture.

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