Mr. Chamberlain: Dear Kaia

I enjoyed reading these blogs that unfolded the story of a brave dad, Jabiz, exposing his daughter to an eighth grade class in Missouri. Mr. Chamberlain's class discovered a 3 year old little girl, Kaia's photography through her personal blog her dad created for their family. Jabiz read, The Last Child in the Woods, to Kaia and it got him to think about how Kaia should be spending more time outside. So the two of them explored their desert surroundings and took some pictures. Jabiz was teaching her to look closely at what is around her, take in the beauty, even if at first sight most people disregard as ugly. He teaching her a valuable lesson at finding the positive and beauty in everything. Kaia's pictures were beautiful, I loved seeing her home from her perspective.


Mr. Chamberlain's class watched Kaia's video essay of her pictures and they made many comments. Jabiz responded to the class and told them he would read the comments to Kaia, but it would be a good idea to send a video response to her since she can't read. Mr. Chamberlain's class did just that through You Tube and Voicethread. Then Mr. Chamberlain and Kaia's dad communicated for the dad to Skype into the class and answer their questions and give them information on where they live, Doha, Qotar. He is a teacher himself and he realizes the importance of learning.



I find these blogs so informative. It amazes me how easy it can be to communicate with strangers from all over the world. I don't even know where Qotar is, I will be looking it up after my post though. It has me thinking about my contacts for this class across the world. I'm very curious to see what I find. I agree with the dad's post on the Intrepid Teacher post about how scary it is to put yourself and especially your children out on the Internet. From reading the comments though it helped me to see that I should teach my children now the right and careful way to use the Internet. It is amazing how much you can learn out there. I could definitely see myself using these resources in my classroom to teach my students. I think it would be so educational and exciting for them to see what is out there for them to learn.

To read these blogs yourself you can go to the following links:

Mr. Chamberlain's Class Blog
Kaia's Blog
Intrepid Teacher