MLK and seeing the need for change...

Every year around the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I bring up and topic of making changes in the world with students.  To do so, we first need to examine the parts where changes are needed.  When presented the question of "how can we make the world a better place?" often students might think of materialistic item (i.e. more toys, more parks, etc) and that is developmentally appropriate for this age group.  Those are things that they can connect to with their own experiences.  However, the conversation with this group of students immediately led to responses saying:

• the police need to stop killing black people (first response, with several agreeing and saying that their family informed them of the same thing)
• the police need to stop arresting people when they only made a small mistake
• stop world war 3
• cleaning up beaches and no littering
• no guns, jail, killing
• treat people the way you want to be treated

These all came from the students organically.  This year every student responded with an social issue that they have either seen, experienced, or heard of.   It was amazing to see the amount of awareness kindergartners have about the world around them and their ability to recognize the changes needed.  It also shows how important and relevant these issues are today for an entire class of kindergartners to be so informed about it.  I am eager to see the plans that they will come up with next and what steps will they take to make these changes possible!

*pictures taken after I posted the writing on window, hence the glare.