In addition to just reading this blog, I also just read the next one, where you captured a few of the questions posed by your Korean students. I’m intrigued about their questions, particularly about unions, how U.S. teachers are paid, and homeschooling. I read this generation of questions as areas of significant difference between U.S. and Korean systems… or maybe, more accurately, just areas of novelty and unknown-ness for this group. Fascinating questions, no matter their motivation.

It really sounds like your work with this group of educators is fascinating and rewarding– as is your work with your middle school students and your kind and thoughtful colleagues there. The urgency in the counselors is palpable; even in the most stable of situations, middle school is a busy and sometimes volatile place. I’m eager to hear how your MLK poetry is going to work out, with their visions for a future. What does it look like, to be a young adolescent, to see Obama about to take office? How will this shape their views of the world and their views of themselves? A new day is dawning…