----- Original Message -----
From: cindy komet - cindy@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: End of summer - ready, set, go
Hi Etniers.
I read a fantastic book this summer titled The Kite Runner by Khaled
Hosseini. In it, there is a passage in which Soraya explains why she wants
to become a teacher. I love 'shmaltz' like this, so I thought I would share
it with you. I guess this is why I voluntarily return to the classroom
every September.
page 139
"I want to be a teacher," she said.
"Really? Why?"...
"Well, when I was in fourth grade in Kabul, my father hired a woman named
Ziba to help around the house. She had a sister in Iran, in Mashad, and,
since Ziba was illiterate, she'd ask me to write her sister letters once in
a while. And when the sister replied, I'd read her letter to Ziba. One
day, I asked her if she'd like to learn to read and write. She gave me this
big smile, crinkling her eyes, and said she'd like that very much. So we'd
sit at the kitchen table after I was done with my own schoolwork and I'd
teach her Alef-beh. I remember looking up sometimes in the middle of
homework and seeing Ziba in the kitchen, stirring meat in the pressure
cooker, then sitting down with a pencil to do the alphabet homework I'd
assigned to her the night before.
"Anyway, within a year, Ziba could read children's books. We sat in
the yard and she read me the tales of Dara and Sara-slowly but correctly.
She started calling me Moalem Soraya, Teacher Soraya." .."I know it sounds
childish, but the first time Ziba wrote her own. letter, I knew there was
nothing else I'd ever want to be but a teacher. I was so proud of her and I
felt I'd done something really worthwhile, you know?"
Yes, I know. How about you?
Oh, and one more thing...
What changes your life is not learning more, though education is important. What changes your life is making decisions - the best decisions you can make - and acting on them. It's been accurately said: "Your decisions determine your direction, and your direction determines your destiny." Or put another way, "The decisions you make. make you." Steve Goodier Have a great school year.
http://www.thehungersite.com/ http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
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