Teacher of the year hands Donald Trump stack of letters from immigrant students

[kpete]

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Here’s a teacher of the year for you. Mandy Manning, the national teacher of the year, is an English language development teacher, which means a lot of her students are immigrants. When she met Donald Trump to be recognized as teacher of the year, Manning didn’t leave her students behind. She brought Trump a stack of letters from immigrant and refugee students:

Some chronicled their experiences coming to the United States — from Syria, Iraq, Uganda, Burma, El Salvador — because they “felt it was important for the president to understand the really rigorous and difficult process and length of time it takes to come to the United States as a refugee,” Manning said.

Some told the president of their dreams and aspirations, the ways they envisioned themselves contributing to society when they got older.

Others just wanted to tell him how coming to the United States gave them hope.

“The thing about our immigrant and refugee students is that they have this innate hopefulness,” Manning told The Washington Post. “They have gone through very, very difficult experiences, but they see coming to the United States as an opportunity. They feel that they can have dreams, and that they can potentially achieve those dreams. It’s really quite beautiful, actually, because no matter what — no matter what they experience — they still have this hope, this resilience.”

Trump took the letters, Manning said, and told an aide to put them on his desk for him to read, saying he really would do so. Of course, we know Trump will say anything he thinks makes him look good in any given moment, and that reading is Not Really His Thing. But whatever Trump does with this, let’s cheer for Mandy Manning. Handing Donald Trump a stack of letters from immigrants when he’s not expecting it? That takes courage. Even in a moment when she was being honored, she was honoring and standing up for her students (having first turned it into a writing assignment for them). That’s a great teacher.


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/3/1761663/-Teacher-of-the-year-hands-Donald-Trump-stack-of-letters-from-immigrant-students

[kacekwl]

1. I hope someone asks him in about a week

about the letters and what some of them wrote. Maybe SHS could give some insight. Hopefully the students drew some pictures.

[CrispyQ]

2. If we had a press that did their jobs, they would.

LOL'd at your last line!