September 30th

I entered the classroom with a pit in my stomach. Nothing can be more nerve wracking than 20 sets of eyes, all pointed on you. Round, impressionable faces. The true reality of my project dawned on me as I swallowed to take my first breath, speak my first words. I present to them about the historical periods, the environment, the art, and the famous people that all mark our understanding of the ancient world as quickly and concisely as I could, trying to gauge their excitement over what I’m talking about. I figured if I could get a few questions about one topic over another, I would know what to continue making the curriculum about. 

To my surprise, I ran out of time. 

Every time I took a break, or even when I didn’t, at least three hands would raise, straining every muscle from shoulder to the tips of the fingers, ready to ask me about something on each slide. In my two hours with them, I spent more time fielding curiosity about the ancient world than I did presenting. 

How was I ever going to decide what they wanted to hear about?

“So, what do you want to learn about most?” I asked them at the end of the day. 

To my absolute awe, all twenty hands go up at once.

The first lesson? The one I ran out of time on? Transliterating their names using letters from the Greek alphabet. The sounds don’t match one to one, so they were being asked to use problem-solving skills. They were also being used to break down the sounds and syllables of words. Transliteration as a process of learning about different languages has been frequently cited as a beneficial tool for students, I had learned. I read many articles, one of the most exciting to me was how students, learning to translate Bangla, used different Roman letters to make clear Bangla sounds ( Al-Azami, Salman, Charmian Kenner, Mahera Ruby, and Eve Gregory 2008, 689). While they didn’t come to the same solution, they certainly were using critical thinking skills to demonstrate their understanding of syllable sounds. 

After collecting references to justify my use of this project in the curriculum, I realized I had spent the good part of my evening doing this, something teachers aren’t afforded the luxury of. I noted that, as well as the citation. 

When I came into class, binder in tow, citations ready to show Mrs. Lawson, she laughed. 

“I appreciate the work, but you know we really don’t get the time to do that, right?” 

Of course, I told her I had realized that the night before, but was providing my receipts anyway, in case she was asked how this contributed to the learning environment. 

She answered: “You’ll know if it’s helping them learn. You’ll see it.” 

And I did.

They took to the activity slowly, working through the process of not replicating letters one to one, but rather the sounds they were hearing. Students whose names begin with the letter J were having a field day trying to interpret the sound into new English letters, then back to Greek again. I had really only asked them to translate names, yet one intrepid student held her paper high for me, asking if she had written “Starbucks” correctly. 

By the end, they were so excited to do their work that most didn’t want to be done when I had to rush to get them packed up and out the door to their parents. A few asked if they could bring the activity home with them so that they could work on transliterating more words with their parents. While I was planning on bringing all of their activities home just so I could check their work and understanding, I sent them home with their papers anyway. I could check another day; third grade only lasts so long, after all. 

I got a handful of pleasant messages from parents that night, surely a bit exhausted from having their name written in Greek at them over dinner, but excited nonetheless about the activity. For privacy purposes, any images of parent messages will be kept from this write up, but I will report that one said their child hadn’t shown that much excitement about school in a very long time.