Several years ago Kyle Schwartz, a third-grade teacher in an inner city Denver, Colorado, elementary school wanted to become better informed. In an attempt to learn more about her students she made a simple assignment: Students were challenged to anonymously write a short essay titled, “I wish my teacher knew.”
“Ninety-two percent of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch,” Schwartz told an ABC News affiliate. “As a new teacher, I struggled to understand the reality of my students’ lives and how to best support them. I just felt like there was something I didn’t know about my students.”
What Ms. Schwartz learned were insights she couldn’t have imagined.
“I wish my teacher knew I didn’t have a friend to play with me,” one student wrote.
“I wish my teacher knew I didn’t have pencils at home to do my homework,” said another.
“I wish I my teacher knew how much I miss my dad because he was deported to Mexico when I was 3 years old and I haven’t seen him in six years” or “I wish my teacher knew that sometime my reading log isn’t signed because my mother isn’t around that much.”
Schwartz posted some of the responses on Twitter at #wishmyteacherknew.
“Building community in my classroom is a major goal of this lesson,” Schwartz continued. “After one student shared that she had no one to play with at recess, the rest of the class chimed in and said, ‘we got your back.’”
According to Schwartz, schools from across the country and around the globe reacted and provided their own student’s responses. And it made me wonder, what do our readers wish we knew?
Are our readers content in their skins? Are they pleased with their communities’ progress? Do they wish for better job growth or a specific type of service? Does this newspaper, or any media, ask the right questions or provide them the answers they seek?
I understand how dangerous it can be to ask questions that we don’t know the answers to, but I believe a successful paper gets to know its audience beyond the subscriber or the public servants that we cover to what do you wish this newspaper knew?
For those with social media skills you can reply on The Laurinburg Exchange’s Facebook page or comment online at laurinburgexchange.com by opening this column. For those with less computer literacy, drop me a card or an essay, write a letter to the editor, pick up the phone or send me a message via carrier pigeon (OK, that would be cool).
I don’t care how you respond, but I do want to know.
Brian Bloom is publisher of The Laurinburg Exchange. He can be reached at [email protected].
