Like many teachers,every year on the first day of school, I lead a sort of icebreaker activity with my students.
I teach at Lincoln High School in Lincoln,Nebraska, and we are one of the oldest and most diverse high schools in our state.
Also,to our knowledge, we're the only high school in the world whose mascot is the Links.
Like,a chain.
(Laughter) And with that being our mascot, we have a statue out front of our building of four links connected like a chain.
And each link means something.
Our links stand for tradition,excellence,unity and diversity.
So on the first day of school, I teach my new ninth-graders about the meaning behind those links,and I give them each a slip of paper.
On that paper,I ask them to write something about themselves.
It can be something that they love, something that they hope for -- anything that describes their identity.
