Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Teaching Immigrants And Feeling A Little Like One

I'm sitting here planning a lesson for the Seventh Grade Literature class I teach.  In Literature class, we're about to start reading a story about a Mexican boy and his father who sneak into the U.S.  All of the students in this Literature class are Mexican-American, so they were interested when we started talking about how we're going to be reading this story about immigration. 

As I was just sitting here planning this lesson, I thought of how, so often when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, Moroccan students would tell me that they wanted to come here to the U.S.  Now that I'm back here in the U.S., I find myself considering the desirability of living in the U.S. from a different vantage point, both for myself and when considering students I teach.  At least one of my current students arrived here in the U.S. a couple of years ago.  I used to teach children who wanted to come to the U.S.  Now I'm teaching students who have made it to the U.S.

As I write this blog entry, I am realizing that I am in somewhat analogous of a position to those of my students who have come here to the U.S.  While there are many significant differences between them and me, nevertheless, like them, I too used to live in another country; I longed to come to the U.S.--in my case, to return to the U.S.--to enjoy living here.  And now, like those of my current students who had wanted to come here from a foreign country, I too came here from a foreign country and am now enjoying the benefits of living here.  And like them, having lived in another country, I can appreciate the blessings of living in the U.S., having the perspective of what it's like to live elsewhere.  Having lived without what I have here in the U.S., now I am much more thankful to God for so many blessings. 

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