Guest Speakers:
Thon Dot & Abraham Thonkjang

When finalizing my curriculum at the beginning of the year, I decided to build an entire unit around the novel A Long Walk to Water, which follows Salva, a Lost Boy of South Sudan, on his journey escaping the civil war. I knew this book would expose my students to issues that people face in other parts of the world, but I wanted them to have real access to the people who are facing those issues in order to develop empathy, compassion, and a drive to effect change. Mariale Hardiman, author of The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model for 21st-Century Schools (2012), discusses the importance of “designing activities that purposefully connect students emotionally with the content, skills, and concepts taught within the learning unit” (p. 53), and I believed that bringing in guest speakers and providing my students with access to human beings they could emotionally connect to would solidify their understanding of the disparities we discuss throughout the novel study. In his book Yardsticks, Chip Wood (2015) writes that 7th grade students deeply engage in “current events [and] environmental issues and causes” (p. 144), as well as “issues of resource use that are visible…[such as] hunger and the growth, distribution, and consumption of food” (p. 165). My students proved to be extremely interested in these current events of injustice and were completely taken aback by the lack of access to food and clean water that people in Sudan faced. Wood goes on to write that 12- and 13-year-old students benefit from activities that take place out-of-the-classroom, stating that these unconventional learning experiences help students “develop the cognitive, social-emotional, and moral strength they will need for the years ahead” (p. 159). I believe that bringing in Thon Dot and Abraham Thonkjang helped my students achieve this level of development.

While I learned that there are a number of Lost Boys in Memphis, which makes them geographically proximal to my students, this was not a regionally obvious or readily available opportunity. Without my initiative to plan, contact, and arrange for these speakers to come to our school, my predominantly Hispanic and African American students would never have had the opportunity to meet or hear from two Sudanese men. I was excited to expose my students to their perspectives, especially as it coincided with our novel study. Additionally, Dot and Thonkjang’s provided students access to people who they would not have otherwise meant — and these people exposed them to opportunities to make a difference in the world through politics, education, and outreach.

The majority of my students who walked out of that presentation had a new perspective about the challenges that people face in various parts of the world, and because of the steps I took to arrange for the guest speakers to come to our school, they learned how to access opportunities to meet and learn from new people.

References

Hardiman, Mariale. The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model for 21st-Century Schools. Corwin. 2012.

Wood, Chip. Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom, Ages 4-14. Center for Responsive Schools, Inc., 2015.

Logistics and Planning

When I began to plan for the guest speakers, I was able to track down the email address of Joseph Atem, a former Lost Boy of South Sudan, through another teacher friend who had met him at an event. I reached out to Atem at the beginning of the semester in January, hoping to schedule him to come speak to our students at the end of our unit in March. Unfortunately, as you can see in the email chain below to the left, Atem had moved to Washington and could therefore not come to our school. He did, however, provide me with the contact information for two other former Lost Boys who lived in Memphis, Thon Dot and Abraham Thokjang. As soon as I received Thokjang’s phone number I called him hoping to connect and he immediately agreed to come speak to our students with Dot. Below to the right is a text messaging chain between myself and Thokjang, confirming logistics prior to the presentation.

My administration was fully supportive of the event and made sure that our students would be able to use the cafeteria, which also serves as a multi-purpose room, and adjusted our block schedule so that all 7th grade students would be able to attend the presentation.

Student Preparation

Just as I began planning the logistics of the guest speakers’ presentations at the beginning of the semester, so the students’ preparation for their visit began in January as well. As stated before, I wanted my students to have the opportunity to meet and hear from Thokjang and Dot at the end of our novel study of A Long Walk to Water. The students spent the semester studying and developing a sense of empathy for the Lost Boys of Sudan through the character Salva, a Lost Boy who traveled thousands of miles on foot fleeing the civil war before ultimately being brought to America and beginning his organization Water for South Sudan which drills clean water wells in Sudanese villages.

The guest speakers were actually a surprise for my students — it was not until we finished the book and I told them that Salva was a real person that I also revealed the guest speakers were coming. With the excitement of Salva, as well as beginning our fundraiser for his organization, the students were eager with anticipation the week leading up to Thokjang and Dot’s visit.

Students prepared to hear from Thokjang and Dot by watching videos about the conditions in South Sudan and reading excerpts from the biography They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, which details the experiences of three Lost Boys as they took the same journey as Salva, Thokjang, and Dot. Above, you can see my lesson priorities the three days leading up to the guest speakers’ arrival. By the time the guest speakers arrived on Thursday, the students had a strong understanding of the geography and conditions that Dot discussed. I made sure that my students were exposed to sufficient resources so that when they met these two Sudanese men, they would have a greater understanding of the impact of their words, while also being able to empathize with their experiences.

Guest Speaker Presentation

In order for all students to take advantage of Thokjang and Dot’s presentation, I arranged for all reading class blocks to be scheduled at the same time. Students were then brought into the cafeteria/multi-purpose room to meet and listen to our guests.

While both Thokjang and Dot were present, Dot spoke to the students for the majority of the time. Students were extremely excited when he opened with, “You know Salva? I know Salva, too.” — he had their undivided attention from that point on. It was incredible to watch the students make connections to what Dot was saying. While is journey was different from the characters we had been studying, he went through the same refugee camps and countries, which the students were well-informed and familiar with. As he would speak, the students would snap showing their understanding and excitement.

Above to the right are two brief audio clips of Dot’s presentation. In “Dot Clip 01,” he describes where he used to live; much of his presentation was chronicling his life and experiences. The second clip, “Dot 02,” is from the end of his presentation; it was a call to action for the students to work hard, to study, and to take advantage of the opportunities they have been given. In this clip he says:

“When I look at you, all these beautiful faces in this room here, I can see a mayor of this city here, I can see the next teacher that will teach in this school here, I can see a missionary that will go to South Sudan and bring the Gospel to the people who were left behind here in this room...You are the future. You are the leaders. The next president of the United States is sitting in this room right now. So take this chance, please, don't take it for granted.”

Click through the images below to see the students listening to Dot’s presentation (referred to on the images as Thon).