5 Miller's

I've got to tell you a bit about my 6th grade class at Westview Elementary. Out of 24 students I have 5 pupils with the last name Miller, all of them are girls. There are 3 Yoder's as well, which makes 1/3 of my class either the classical Northern Indiana surname of Miller or Yoder. Some of you reading this will be like "so what's the big deal Earl happens all the time" others of you might say "what is the deal with everyone having the same name" still others of you might respond with "why I am wasting my time reading about surnames in Earl's new classroom" if you are in the last camp sorry, I think it is quite interesting. The school I teach at is in Amish country, for those of you unfamiliar with the Amish they are a small religious minority who choose to live life without modern conveniences such as electricity, cars, phones, computers etc... Many come from farms, and all of the fathers are incredible workers. Out of my class 1/2 are Amish, I have always seen their buggies driving around this area, now I see many more each day. More than 3/4 of the class have horses that they ride so today when I found an incredibly old and tattered "How to draw horses" drawing book I was quite excited. At some level it is like driving into a new world, and of course kids are kids and still love to have a laugh and then be ready to learn the next moment. I look forward to learning all about their culture I know that will happen, just yesterday I had handed out a classmate bingo sheet to fill out. They were to write their favorite food, color, birthday month and so on. One of the categories was favorite TV show, this sounds easy enough except for half of my class doesn't have a TV and consequently don't have a favorite TV show. This is just a small piece of the learning curve ahead this year for me as I get educated by twenty-four 12 and 13 year olds. Let's get started class
earl