Journal Entries: The Pledge of Allegiance

My new students answer a journal prompt every day at the beginning of class. And they are hilarious. Here are some examples:

Do you think it is important to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day?

We say the pledge because well I don't know maybe its also a prayer or something but I really dont care about the pledge why do we even say it every morning of school! It's OK but its cool to learn because I can say it heckafast.
No I think we should do it on holidays or veterinarians day, M,L,K birthday and other stuff like that. I dont think we should do it evory day is just waisting time when it shoud be on important days. thats why I say no
I think that some people should not go so fast and listen to each other. I also think its importnat that we do the Pledge because we are onering the country and its important to do that. Like when we say the Cadet Code in Cadet Core [Cadet Corps, some kind of drum line] we cant move or talk or sneeze or cof or any think that invalves noise or movement. If you messup the Code you have to do ten push-ups.
Yes I do think we should do the pledge every day. It's to show are respect to our four father's. And to show we are about were we live and the country we stay at. This is the best country ever. If an alien took my sister. I would call the police. the army. and I'll get a shot gun and shoot the alien in the head so he will come down so the police can get him.

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A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class.

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other prison but I still

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea

Bronwyn Harris, Author

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