By Jill Ferraresso, Grade 2 Teacher

In November the 2nd graders read a book in class called "Fly Away Home" by Eve Bunting. In this story, a boy and his father are homeless and secretly living in an airport. This story launched our discussion about homelessness and allowed us to challenge common stereotypes about homeless people being lazy. We used our human being truths chart to talk about how in any group of people, there may be some lazy ones, some hard-working people, etc., and that in general, if a person does not have a home, they are missing something they really need. There are many different stories about why or how someone became homeless. Our main focus is on being compassionate and doing something to help.

We talked about how homelessness is a complex issue and not one to be solved easily. We can't all move people into our homes, or hand out all our money, but we can do a few things that can really help individual human beings.