Children Share Respect

About the Book

The story takes place in an elementary school and classroom. The characters are the nineteen students and the teacher, Ms. Smith. The teacher brainstorms with the students on how to share the different aspects of respect with the rest of the students in the school. Together they decide to write stories and make a class book of them. They make up posters and put them up around the school. The children make a bulletin board of the world and are able to travel around the world using their personal pictures each time they do something that shows respect. The students also make games using respectable words that they can play with other children on the playground and in the classroom. At the end of the school year, each class in the school puts on a performance on stage doing something they had learned during the school year. Ms. Smith’s class, having learned all about respect, writes a poem and performs their respect poem on stage as a class.

About the Author

My husband, George, and I have been married for fifty-six years. I went back to school at age thirty-one after we had our family of four children. I received my BA from UMD in 1972. The same year, I was fortunate to get a teaching position in the town of Acushnet, Massachusetts. Where we lived and our children attended school. I taught third grade for nineteen years and first grade for five years before retiring. George and I have fourteen grandchildren and five great grandchildren and more on the way. They range from ages three to thirty-four. We enjoy our grandchildren tremendously. We have always expressed to them, “No matter what profession you choose to do in life, be sure you enjoy it!” Therefore, I decided to show them my joy of working with children and included them of teaching a unit on respect. In the story, they became my nineteen students and the best class ever, as only a grandmother would claim. And I feel the story also shows that going to school and learning can be fun.