Monday, January 18, 2010

I did not realize how long it had been since I last wrote, until I signed in now to write a new post. I was considering today how very different this MLK Day is from last year. How vividly I remember getting ready for last year, then narrating the tour of downtown Harrisburg to my assigned service group. I remember crossing the semi-frozen Susquehanna and getting out at the Civil War Museum, overlooking Harrisburg, to read the moving "I Have a Dream" speech to the other members of the van. I remember sitting in Sci-Tech Academy listening to an African American teacher discuss teaching African American poetry to his students and thinking about the educational needs in America, hardly considering that in less than a year I myself might have my own class of students. I remember going with my group to Paxton Home, where I would then choose to spend the rest of the semester volunteering, to help up fix up a halfway home for them.

Today I will not take a tour of Pointe Coupee or read aloud Reverend King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Today I will not get my hands dirty painting walls in King's honor or tour schools that appear to be one more  step along the long path to meeting King's dream. No, today I will simply lesson plan and hope, in doing so, I too am honoring King with the dreams I hold for my students.