Celebrate Black Teachers and Students
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
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Mr. N. from Chicago IL is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
The cost of a class set of Elie Wisel's Night is $252, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
I am a 6th grade teacher in a struggling school on Chicago's southside. Ninety-five percent of the 800 students receive free or reduced lunches. Books are extremely hard to come by. Poverty and violence are everyday realities; the educational environment is plagued with overcrowded classrooms and inadequate funding. In the midst of all of this, however, I consider myself blessed. My 30 students manage to overflow with intellectual curiosity, their will to supersede any and all expectations inspires, and their passion to learn leaves me in awe. What I have realized over the last four months is that one of my utmost priorities as a teacher is to constantly present my students with intriguing material. Their education must become both exciting and meaningful. Additionally, I want my students to experience and comprehend the vastness and diversity of our world through every subject. This is fundamental to every reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies lesson that is taught. This is vital to the students in the community where I teach particularly because only a handful have traveled outside of the 10 square blocks they call home. With this in mind, I ask for a class set of books to supplement our Holocaust unit in social studies. Elie Wiesel's novel Night changed my life as a 12 year old boy; and I know it will have a similar effect on my students. This story of a teenage boy who fought heroically through life- almost to his death- in Auschwitz and survived to tell his horrific tales portrays the inner truth of this tragic historical time. Every single 6th grader deserves the right to read and feel it. I know my students well. I promise you they would immerse themselves in this text, and their reading levels, abilities, and interests would expand and improve because of it. On a final note, I read the first chapter of Night aloud to my students two weeks ago. When I finished, one of my students raised her hand. “Mr. Nelson,” she said, “you can't just stop reading like that- it's just not fair to leave us hanging after you start such an interesting story.” The students in my classroom are eagerly waiting and hoping.
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