No such thing as a simple discussion

Since my students have been learning about cultures and monuments and landmarks, I decided to read them some stories about American historical figures they may not have heard of and have them decide why that person deserves a monument.

We read about Father Junipero Serra, a priest who helped settle the first mission in San Diego. I (naturally) slaughtered the pronunciation of his name.  I asked my Spanish speaking students to help me.  Apparently if you're from Peru or Guatemala or Mexico, you pronounce that name a tiny bit differently.

We agreed to disagree and moved on.

Yesterday we read about Abigail Adams.  I gave them some background on the Revolutionary War.  One student raised his hand to add his knowledge. "They wanted us to drink tea all the time and we just wanted to drink soda."

Another student wondered, "Why do we have to pay taxes when some other countries, like Wendover, don't?"

Sometimes I don't know how to respond.

I really don't.

I chose one path.  "We pay taxes for important things.  Your parents pay taxes for our school.  They pay taxes for the library and the roads and to clear the snow off the roads."

That finally seemed worth it.

When I was reading the story, it mentioned Patriots.  "Hey, wait a minute," a student said. "There's a football team named that.  Are they named after the football team?"

So we talked about that (no, I didn't delve into deflate-gate).  We talked about how they are in Boston and that is where the war started and where a lot of the Patriots were.   The football team is named after them.

At last we finished the story about Abigail's courage in the face of impending war.  She took care of her farm and son and wrote encouraging words to John Adams who was away in Philadelphia for the Continental Congress.  In the story, she climbed a hill and saw the smoke and heard the cannons from the Battle of Bunker Hill.

One of my students came up to me after the story, when I had instructed them to return to their desks and write about why Abigail deserved a monument.  Her eyes were filled with tears and then she started sobbing.

"What's wrong?!?" I asked.

Through her tears, she asked, "Was that town destroyed?"

It took me a minute to even figure out what she meant.

"You mean Boston?  Oh no, it's a big city now.  They had a war but then it ended and now it's a big city."

I pulled out my iPad and started showing her pictures of modern day Boston.  "See?  It's fine.  Isn't that pretty?"

She nodded and dried her tears.

Don't think you can just read a brief story about Abigail Adams to third graders without some serious analysis.