The sixth graders get it.

For the month of June I am substituting for parapfrofessionals in the Torrington school systems. So far I have been at the high school, middle school and one of the elementary schools. TMS has been my favorite so far and an incident today reinforced that.

I was grading history tests for Mrs. Vinal's sixth grade classes. One of the sections of the test the students were given a short passage about the emperors and the wealthy people in Ancient Rome. It talked about the large feasts they had with ostrich, doormouse in honey and other delicacies of the time. It went on to explain that the rich enjoyed many different types of entertainment during these feasts. After reading the passage, the students had four questions to answer. For the last one, they were to write down two questions that they would ask the wealthy Romans should they be able to talk to them.

"..My second question would be about why the poor people didn't get to eat with them." I was astonished. I took a second and prayed for the child with this response and then moved on. To my surprise, test after test... probably about 90% of them had asked a question about the treatment of the poor in comparison to the wealthy.

"What did the poor eat?"
"Why couldn't the wealthy people just share?"
"Did the poor people go hungry, or did they eat other stuff?"

It was amazing. These sixth graders seem to get it. They understand that there is a difference in lifestyle between the wealthy and the poor. Not only do they understand it, but they want to know why.

So I pose the question: Why, when we have so much, do so many go without so much? Why don't we share some of our everyday feasts with the hungry?

These sixth graders get it. in all of their innocence. I hope and pray that these children don't lose this perspective and they continue to ask this question. That they wouldn't be made out to be naive when doing so, but would stand up and ask the tough questions.

I pray that we all sit back and digest the question: Why don't we share our feasts? Or if we do.. why not share more?