"Life In The 21st Century"

My son had a project tonight. It appeared to be a "quick and dirty" assignment and I was psyched while cooking dinner. Ok...this will take me only a few minutes I thought. So the directions read...create a commemorative stamp with a mission and a reasoning. I rarely write about my children; but when I can learn a lesson from a second grader I like to share. Anyway, to make a long story short, he created a stamp for the homeless people all over the world. The goal of his commemorative stamp would be to reach people in far away places and send a message of hope with a stamp. Did he come up with the concept? NO. I did. But once we shared what homelessness was, he took great pride in his project. He actually wanted to put the finished piece in a FOLDER. You don't understand, that's huge for him because he oftentimes has the wrinkled papers at the bottom of his book bag. So, what moved me? Well...he was proud of the little stick figures he drew and the multi-colored variations. And lastly...the folder. He didn't want the paper to get wrinkled. What!? He cares about this? I thought. And then I hoped that his teacher was as excited as I was. I also remembered the countless times I had a student present me with their best work. Then I realized how important it was for all adults, not just educators, to celebrate what is dear to students. What we bloggers call comments are the very essence of character building for our children and yes "our comments matter." Even if a student draws a stick figure, that figure means something to the student. What I saw from my son's work was an attempt at solving a very worthy/worldly goal...using a child's: brush, heart and folder to keep the thought alive and straight.
(I did help my son, with the guidance of thought) but why I immediately thought about blog comments is because we oftentimes write posts and wait for THE RIGHT COMMENT to validate our post. Well...I learned tonight that students don't always read comments; they need the real thing.