"Mouse" by Katie Carleton
Will and I just got back from Katie's parent-teacher conference. We were sent home with a folder of some of Katie's projects. This one above caught my attention. I'm glad to see they are teaching first graders the skill of perspective-taking. Try to put yourself in another's shoes, or, in this case, another's bare paws, and think about how it would be to live in this world. That is a skill we all need to hone.
Looking over Katie's mouse book above, I like how Katie's mind thinks. She herself loves cats. But she understands that if she were a mouse, she would feel differently about cats. Good work!
As we were leaving the conference, Katie's teacher stood to shake our hands and said, "I really enjoy Katie. She's such a sweet girl."
I'm glad to see public schools focusing on the whole child and not just test scores. Academics are obviously important. If a child doesn't know how to read or add and subtract, she will have tremendous difficulties as an adult in our society. But if a child doesn't learn how to empathize, life will be much more challenging for her as an adult too. "Plays well with others" is an elementary skill that serves all ages.
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