About a month ago, I gave a presentation about Mozambique to a group of sixth graders who were visiting the Center. Yesterday, I was delighted to find some letters from these kids in my mailbox. Yes, I know this was probably a graded assignment that served the dual purpose of practicing the correct format for letter writing and a handwriting test. Nonetheless, some are quite lengthy, and many have additional questions. Now, the question will be whether I can make it a priority to send them back (a) letter(s). Here are a few excerpts from these letters:
"Although you taught my class and me many things, I still have a couple of questions. These questions are: did the people of Mozambique have plumbing like sinks, toilets, etc., and do people in Mozambique not live as long as we do because they do not have a modern-day society? These are questions that I would like to be answered, so I hope you can write back. In the meantime, I would like to say thank you for everything."
"Learning about the Mozambique people was important because it taught me that we are all unique in the way we live. We all have different customs, beliefs, clothes, food, and just a different way of life to survive in our environment...
I wouldn't have minded to learn more about the Mozambique people if there had been more time. For example, I would have liked to know: What other kinds of crops and animals do they raise? What kinds of festivities do they celebrate? And also, what are some of their religious beliefs and customs? Thank you, Ms. Bowman for sharing your knowledge and experience with us about the people of Mozambique. Your presentation grabbed my attention."
(Insert warm, fuzzy feeling here)
"Your job is the awesomest! I wish I could have it. It is neat that you get to travel to Mozambique."
"It looked like a difficult job to collect a ton of firewood for your house...it looks pretty tough to have to do all that work."
Yeah, man. It's getting cold here, and it would be an adjustment to be spending my days running around in moccasins collecting firewood. I hear you on that one.
About Me
- Maria Susannah Bowman
- Berkeley, CA, United States maria.s.bowman@gmail.com
- I am a Ph.D. Student in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. I love yoga, rock climbing, exciting research, and playing outside.
5 comments:
Hey, I've missed you.
I recently received a "thank you" note of sorts from concord university students; it read: "We really appreciate you getting us up at 7:00 in the morning and working our asses off."
Maria, you have to write to the student who wrote the word "awesomest" and tell him/her that awesomest is not a word.
Since it looks like we are all indulging in other people's admiration for our jobs, I will share with you an e-mail I recently got from one of my students:
"Thank you very much for making Chem 1035 enjoyable. In high school, chemistry was not my thing...and coming into Virginia Tech as a bio major, I knew chemistry would be a big part of my college career. I love the way you
teach and the demo's are so fun! I really wish you were teaching Chem 1036 because you were amazing. The way you taught encouraged me to go back to my room and study the material that night. I learned so much in your class and I also did really well in your class; I'm very proud of myself because I was so
nervous coming into chemistry. Actually, about half way through your class, I decided to add Chemistry as a minor and I'm really excited to see what other chemistry courses are out there. Since I'm pre-pharmacy, I'm sure I'll be
taking a bunch here in the next four years. Thanks again for making chemistry class so fun! I gained a lot from your class. Hopefully I will have you again
in the near future."
Oh yeah. Sometimes it's good to be goofy in class.
That is ricockulous - awesomest is so a word!
Rho, I don't care what you, your puppler and your tomler say; awesomest ain't a word. I'm gonna git me a dictionary and verify it.
I love it that we are having an argument about the word "awesomest" on my weblog...
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