A conversation with my students. (NaBloPoMo Day 11)

This is how I explained to my students on why you should give any new president a chance to prove themselves, and to see what they can do. We were discussing how we might not like who was elected, but that we had to respect the office and why we should hope that whoever is in that office does a good job. (We had discussed Obama’s election too)
“Pretend that I have a stack of files, one for each of you. During the summer, I get a chance to read up on your schoolwork, your grades, your discipline records, and what your previous teachers have said about you. Now, I haven’t met you yet and I haven’t seen you, so this is all the information that i have. Some of you have been in trouble, some of you haven’t made the best grades, and some of you didn’t always get along with your teachers. Let’s now pretend that I have taken all that information and have already decided who is going to be the student who will give me trouble, and who will be the student who will get good grades…. all without having met you or given you a chance to prove yourself, and I treated you accordingly. Is that fair? Would you like me to treat you that way based on just the stuff that I have read and what other people say about you, or would you like me to give you a chance to get to know you, because maybe you have changed and maybe you have learned from your mistakes?”
My students , who are ESE (lower performing) and ESOL (English Speakers of other languages and immigrants) got it. Now why can’t adults?
And this is my last post on this election. It was an interesting conversation to have because of the makeup of my classes.