Day 140ish at the WOO (World of Opportunity) @ B'ham

[Anne Nonniemouse <ShopMathEdu@AOL.COM>]

Dear ARN folks:

I just wanted to share a little more joy with this list.

This past Tuesday, we had a special anatomy lesson in our Health Care class.
An anatomy instructor from UAB (who also happens to be a student-advocate
member of the local Board of Education) brought specimens of hearts, lungs,
and brains to present to our students.  More than 50 students attended this
special presentation by the UAB instructor and our own Health Care
instructor.   Our classroom was jam-packed.  We had to hustle up chairs from
a nearby business.  Several of the students brought their babies with them.
So we had wall-to-wall people that day.  Many of the students were among the
puhsedout ones that have been slandered by our school system as having a
"lack of interest".   You should have seen the keen interest our students had
for this two hour presentation.  They were riveted to the donor organs and
the revealing information between the healthy lungs of an older person and
the damaged lungs of a young smoker.  They were fascinated by the brain,
cerebellum and spinal cord.  There were gasps, and laughs, and awe as the
formaldehyde saturated organs went around the classroom.  Our students all
wore surgical gloves as they passed one tray of organs to another.  They
asked imaginative and inquisitive questions.  They were a classroom of
students which any teacher who loves students would dream of having.  That
day (and on many other days) our pushedout "low achieving, ADDs, lack of
interest" students received college level instruction and they cherished it.
The notes our students took were wonderful.

It is so tragic that the standardized war machine took aim at these wonderful
souls and pushed them out of school in the name of raising scores and
standards.

Stop the inhumanity.

Warmest greetings to one and all,

Steve Orel
adult education instructor
World of Opportunity
Birmingham, Alabama

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