The "Look who's talking" Project

THE "LOOK WHO'S TALKING" PROJECT

I vowed early in my teaching career to make teaching as fun and meaningful as possible. But I also knew that it would be necessary to motivate students so they could see the value in their learning. Remembering my own days in school, I realized that my students would not necessarily listen to me while I extolled the virtues of getting an education. So Sheila and I discussed this problem and arrived at an answer to the situation. We would try to get famous people whom the students know and respect to tell them how valuable an education can be. However, getting famous folks to come to the classroom and speak to the students is pretty much impossible. Sheila's solution: write to the famous people, requesting letters that I could share with my students. And the "Look Who's Talking" project was born. Specifically, we requested a letter or picture from each celebrity, asking for a suitable message to my students which I could then put on the wall of my classroom for the students to read.

Over the years we have written to about 300 famous people from many fields of endeavor: actors, musicians, scientists, and politicians, to name a few. About 25% of all people we wrote to supplied some form of reply. Generally the responses were form letters of the "Thank you for the kind letter, please join my fan club" variety, or were an autographed picture with no message for my students. I suspect that these responses were handled by a secretary, and the celeb in question never saw the letter we had written.

A precious few responses, however, contained what we had asked for - messages of encouragement for my students. Each day, starting on the first day of class I add a new letter or picture to the wall for the students to read. Each day when the students come in they have a new message telling them that school is important. It is my hope that they take these messages to heart and will stay in school.

The "Look Who's Talking" project continues. Every couple of years we send out another batch of letters to celebs who we have not yet contacted. We are constantly looking for new folks who the students will know and respect, and who are also positive role models. It is sometimes sad to see how few people actually fit the category. Before his death I had lots of student requests for me to write to Tupac Shakur. I tried to explain to my students that he was not necessarily a "positive" role model. Many people who are positive role models are unkown to my students. Some of the people posted here now fall into that category, though when they sent the letters, my students did know them. A few who have written to me have since died. Coincidentally, there have been a couple of people who we wrote to who died while the letters were in transit. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan never had the chance to respond to our inquiry. I'm sure they would have provided great letters for the kids.

Here is a selection of letters and pictures I have received. As time permits, I will add more of the responses.

Billy Barty