I Have A Dream

So in teaching about the civil rights movement during my stay in South Africa, I had my students create their own "I Have A Dream" speech. And the responses I received from my grade 9 students (ages 14) were stunning. Some of my favorites included written poems about true beauty, what society could be, life aspirations, and incredible principals to live by. Following are a few examples of remarkable ideas:

• "Reputation is for time, but character is for eternity."


• "This is my dream... FOR A SAFE SOUTH AFRICA"


• "To be perfect in my religion... getting rid of pride, arroagance, and at times feelings of superiority"


• "That the government can keep its promises"


• "That people would stop using the terms white, colored, and black"


• "For rich people to wake up and start caring about people"


• "That people are not segregated by the way they look, the language they speak, or the country they are from. When leaders see the world as one and not divided by man made borders."


• "If someone finds a skeleton, will they know whether it was black or white?"


• "Money makes the world go around, but also consumes us."


• And finally "I have a dream that race was nothing apart from something my friends and I did. That drugs were nothing but treatment at clinics. That smoking was something only cars and trains did. And that the word HUMANITY actually meant something to people."

Breathtaking really...