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Health & Fitness

Generation Apathetic Stands Up!

The outcome of Trayvon Martin's death may not end with George Zimmerman being prosecuted and/or spending time in prison but at least Trayvon's death WILL NOT be in vain.

 

I love to dislike my students. They make me CRAZY, MAD, SAD, FRUSTRATED, SMILE, & LAUGH. I guess you could say they make me feel a range of emotions on a daily, almost minute to minute basis. 

Another strange thing they do is remember the NON Academic things I say... Well that's not totally true. Lately, they have been saying "reading is fundamental"   which is one of my favorite phrases to say after they ask a question that they could have answered themselves if they had just read the directions or the board. But the other phrase they have been repeating is my Generation Apathetic phrase. I think I said this twice, TWICE and now they won't let it go. Well today, I am glad to write that Generation Apathetic has come alive with Travyon Martin's unfortunate and untimely death.

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They have been keeping up with the news, discussing politics, and race relations. I can't believe it! Something has lit a fire beneath them and I am estactic! They are having meaningful discussions, using context clues, making inferences, connections, analyzing, and synthesizing...I mean its everything that I can hope and want for as a reading teacher! Although, it gives me pause that they don't regularly use these skills in class or to pass the FCAT...but thats another blog post. 

Trayvon Martin has given me hope for the future. It gives me hope because some students won't stand for injustice. We talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s " I Have a Dream Speech" but sometimes its more lip service than action.

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The students  looked at Trayvon (and I'm not solely talking about African American students) as one of them. Both the girls and the boys wear hoodies ALL the time! Personally, I think they live in them. Even when its 100 degrees outside or inside the classroom (when the AC is broke) they still have that hoodie. They eat skittles all the time too. I've seen one student eat so many skittles, I told him he was going to turn into a skittle. They talk to their girlfriends and boyfriends on the phone all the time walking down the street to a friend's house. Its nothing to them. Its what they do.

So for them to use their resources (Twitter, Facebook,YouTube, text messages, emails, word of mouth) to plan protests and walk outs... it makes me proud. They are using what they learned in History class about their freedom of speech to make themselves heard! And no, I am not naive enough to believe that all of them are doing it for the right reasons but I feel that the majority are sincere. Maybe Generation Apathetic isn't so apathetic after all. Maybe it just takes a little longer to get their fire burning.

**please note that I do not think all students are apathetic. 

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