11:00 a.m. - Here are two of my Saturday School students whom I will call Jennifer and Joseph. These two have more personality than they know what to do with. Jennifer was the type of student that made getting out bed at 6:30 on a Saturday morning even more difficult. But through the grace of God, we were able to forge a really fun relationship. She didn't really learn much English but she embraced some literature. She loved the Odyssey and came to appreciate the love Odysseus has for Penelope and the love that George had for Lennie in Of Mice and Men. She also tried really hard to keep from using the words w#!&$ and f*&! - two words she used in almost every sentence. Those two words alone told me she could manipulate language. After all, she used both words in different parts of speech with creativity and flair. Sometimes the words were verbs, sometimes adjectives, sometimes adverbs. But soon it became our Saturday Breakfast Club goal to help Jennifer clean up her mouth and to help Joseph clean up his act. Joseph was always recuperating from the night before. He was always working on little to zero sleep. But even through his haze, it was Joseph who turned our silent morning crew into the Saturday Breakfast Club. "You know Ms. Grosser, wouldn't it be kind of weird if we went through the entire year without talking to each other?" So my quiet mornings of independent work soon became a place to discuss life - often with details that made it difficult to listen. I learned what trappin' means and they learned what it meant to work hard, play hard, and to finish something they started. Each of the club members that started, came through and finished the course. There were a few that never really got inducted - they never really bought into our club. Because they never embraced the power of we, they didn't come back to finish. But the founding members of the Saturday Breakfast Club now have an English 9 credit and a year of memorable Saturday conversations and personalities.
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