DC Middle School reading "How To Grow Up Like Me" in the Classroom!

April 30, 2015 Kathy Crutcher

One of Miss Ramble's 8th grade reading students at Hardy Middle School in NW DC picked up Ballou Story Project's "How to Grow Up Like Me" from his school library and couldn't put it down. He showed his teacher and neither could she. Now he and his fellow students are reading, discussing, and responding to these memoirs for the rest of the school year. Says Miss Ramble, "They can't wait to come to class." They want to meet these authors. They have so many questions. They have so much to say.

Check out some excerpts from our conversation below. I was so excited about the power of this connection that I turned on my voice recorder -- I had to capture this impact for our authors.

Ms. Ramble: So today we read DeSean's story "Without My Father," and [one of our students] had a bad experience with his father. He kind of went into detail about how his dad just left one day, just up and disappeared. And he said, ‘This is good, because I’m able to relate to this situation.’ And he said for his thought-provoking question, ‘I wanna know is there anyone else in our class who had a similar experience? If you don’t mind sharing.’ And I said ‘You know, you don’t have to share,’ but more than half of them shared situations where they had not-so-good experiences with their father. And some of them shared, you know, ‘I can’t relate to this because my father is this, is that’. But we were just able to have a conversation about it. Kathy: Wow, it sounds like it’s really bringing the class together. [They] were talking about things they don’t normally get to talk about. Like, in some ways, the bravery of [these authors] being so vulnerable…is allowing the readers to be vulnerable as well. Ms. Ramble: Yes, exactly. And the images are powerful, too. Just seeing the kids’ faces, and the fact that it’s in black and white—all of that’s very powerful. It speaks volumes to the students. Kathy: That’s awesome. And I am really impressed by the curriculum you’re developing! Ms. Ramble: Thank you. I want to do a culminating project like you did, because I read in the beginning about how you gave them a "How to Grow Up Like Me" assignment and had them do a kind of a manual, and so I wanted to do that as our culminating [project], because we’re sharing little by little, as we read each person’s story, and they should feel more comfortable doing their own piece now… Kathy: That’s great. And it becomes like a call-and-response kind of thing, you know? That we can share with the students and we can share with a broader community, that this is the kind of conversation that’s coming out of this work. That’s excellent. This is all so, so exciting. I can't wait to tell our authors!

Miss Ramble of Hardy MS and Kathy of Shout Mouse Press

We couldn't be more excited about this connection, more grateful for innovative educators like Miss Ramble, or more proud of our authors. This was our happy photo post-meeting today with the good folks at Hardy. So much more to come!