The education basketball challenge.

This school year has been awesome. In many ways, I have the gift of time. At least, it seems that way while the school year slowly begins. There is a community day middle school program on the campus of the elementary school where I work in SoCal. Due to this gift of time, I am co-teaching every Wednesday morning with the resource specialist. The counselor only works four days a week, so we take over her rotation on her day off. Today has been week 2. I really enjoy it. It is challenging and tiring and amazing to work with such incredible students. They are smart and funny. Figuring themselves out and testing their boundaries. They're still young enough to humor me and share their super hero name and power.

Today the RSP and I performed a play that supplemented the curriculum the counselor is using. It was a play on trustworthiness. One of the characters in the play, Holly, wanted to steal a shirt. Her friend, Megan, convinced her to split the cost and share the shirt. Words like 'integrity, trustworthiness, principles' were used. My co-worker and I challenged some of our students to write their own play with their own scenario.

We quickly learned that some students had stolen before and would do it again. We learned that some students want to but won't. One student had already shared how he worked over the weekend to earn money to buy a game in November. I work in low-income area. The gang in the neighborhood is on the rise, so I hear. Some stories I've heard throughout the years include: jail, hunger, neglect. Their stories are beyond what I can imagine as a white, middle-class woman who grew up in a rural town with very little diversity.

Two of the students decided their scenario would be seeing an autographed Kobe Bryant basketball at the Laker stadium. They insisted upon stealing it for the first half of the time allotted to complete the assignment. Finally, they wrote an ending with so many cops it would be impossible to steal it. Perhaps they were being sarcastic the entire time. Perhaps they were serious.

This incident made me think about several difficult things. Race and class are at play. There are ways in which I cannot relate to my students. There are elements in their environment I will likely never understand. I did not grow up in an area with gangs. Neither of my parents went to jail. I was well-fed and cared for by my parents, even today as an adult this is true.

But I had a great idea while driving back to work for Back To School Night. Given the gift of time in not being able to sleep, I have written a rough draft of a letter to Kobe Bryant. How powerful would it be for those two students to receive a signed basketball from Kobe? How powerful is the gift of grace? Well, it contains the power to transform a person, a life.