According to City-Data.com, 43% of the people living in my city are living below the poverty line. This is compared with the state at 21%. While this has everything to do with my student's ability to get materials, it has nothing to do with the remarkable young adults that they are.
My students are humble, creative, innovative "ballers" who sometimes rap, sometimes dance, and almost always love debating in the classroom.
They live in a small town of corn fields with gross amounts of poverty.
Although we're amazing at sports, I'd like my students to be known for their academic abilities. In order to show my students that they can overcome this poverty through more than just NBA dreams and the rap game, it's up to me to instill in them a sense of pride.
They are students that need the most care and guidance and who have given me the best year of my life in the 2012-2013 school year. I'm amazed that although they aren't on grade level in reading, that they put efforts in that defy even the Incredible Hulk's green muscle power.
I go in my classroom and ask my students for their best everyday and that's what they give me, regardless of the trials they face in their homes and/or their community.
My Project
I have requested eighty-four 3-ring binders so my students can learn organizational skills. I can't even spell out how you would change my students' lives by just the simple donation of a binder.
Last year, out of 172 students, I had six students come to school with a binder. I made a deal with one student that he could take an empty binder that I had if he brought it to class everyday and let me tell you, he carried that binder like precious gold.
I want these binders to teach my students that people out there believe in them, but also to teach them the much-needed organizational and responsibility skills that they yearn for.
If my students knew how to organize a binder by placing their grades and work into categories, that would be the first step, an easy step to help with, in lessening their burden.
I will be able to teach them how to manage their own materials, and keep track of grades and homework by creating a filing system. They will learn what we all eventually need to learn, organization. If we want college ready students in America, this is the first step.
I just want you to know how much I care about my students.
I would love to be here asking you for a super exciting music project, or painting project, or project-based-learning project, but I'm here asking for one of the simplest things that you can give a child, binders.
Right now, my students need the basics, and it's not at all because they're basic, they just need someone to believe enough in them to know that keeping it simple is giving back big.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Mannes and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.