My TFAvorite Day

Two new favorites about teaching: morning bus duty and reading my students’ journal entries.

Every morning this week, a team of 5 teachers goes outside to greet the morning buses and walk students to the front of the school. I absolutely love being the first one to see the little faces that come trudging down the bus stairs, and being the first friendly face they see in the morning. But what I love even more is spotting my own students among the crowd and greeting them with a special high five—another opportunity to show them that I care about them. It’s crazy how fast you can get attached to these guys. Good days and bad days (and we’ve had both), these are my babies, and I love every minute I have with them—even the tough ones, because at least they make great stories later.

My collab teachers and I have also taken to reading their daily journal entries together. One of my partners is great at coming up with creative writing prompts, and the kids have the cutest, funniest, and most creative responses. Their sentences are so innocent, their thoughts so purposefully recorded in their 4^th grade handwriting. Jeremiah, for example, our pastor-to-be, wrote this about today: “My poo will be 5 ft long.” The prompt was to write about your dream house, so we’re assuming he means “pool”, but the fact that he spelled it exactly the way he pronounces it and has no idea of the hysterics he put us in is priceless. I think I’m going to photocopy some of their journal entries to cheer me up on days that are hard—how could you not smile when you’re reading them?

More introductions to my students. My class only has three girls: Ja’Kyla, Johnkeria, and Jasmine. I mixed their names up several times the first few days, but they didn’t seem to care. All three are very quiet in the classroom, but once we get to lunch, the chatterboxes emerge from their shells. Some of my favorite moments from my first week were listening to the lunch conversations, and even participating in a few. On our second day, Ja’Kyla, the most outgoing and diva-like of the three, had a question for me: “Are you Indian?” When I answered no, she continued, “Are you black?” Again, I answered no, and she looked confused. I asked her what she was thinking, and she promptly informed me that she had never seen a white girl with dark hair before; “I thought white girls was supposed to have blond hair.” I laughed at the simplicity and innocence of her assumption, but also realized how often we make such overgeneralized assumptions, even as adults.

Johnkeria is my girl. She’s polite and respectful, but it’s clear that she’s eager to learn and loves being at school. On her first day in our classroom, Johnkeria told me that she hated math because she wasn’t good at it. I told her we’d change that, and by the end of the summer she would love math. Today, a week and a half later, as I announced to the class that it was time to break into our small groups for math practice, I caught Johnkeria fist pumping her excitement. Excitement, I said. After only 6 days of class, Johnkeria proudly announced that she loves math. Several times in our past few small group lessons she has said that math is fun and a contagious smile lit up her face. All it took were some number tiles, flashcards, a makeshift whiteboard, a deck of cards and lots of praise and encouragement, and one of my lowest math students is not only progressing, but she loves math. It’s amazing what individual attention and a chance to build up their confidence can do for a child. Johnkeria is reason # 103 that I wake up at 4 am every morning without question or resentment. And just so you know, she scored the only 100% on our bar graph assessment today, and made goal for my collaborative teacher’s assessment, too. But do you want to know what convinces me that I’m doing my job, even more than her 100%? Yesterday, in our reading small group, Johnkeria was practicing putting a sight word, “special”, into a sentence. Here’s what she came up with: “Ms. H. thinks I’m special.” Johnkeria has picked up on the fact that I believe in her, and that’s what matters more than anything. Because now, she believes in herself, and she knows she is a “Math Captain”.

Jasmine is the quietest of the three. Her voice is naturally soft, and even when I try to coax her to use her “big voice” in class, she’s still barely audible. I have a feeling it has more to do with a lack of confidence than anything else, but I can see her starting to come out of her shell a bit and participate more in class. An improvement, considering the first few days of school she received check after check for laying her head down on her desk. Jasmine is also in my small groups for reading and math, and while they are both lower level groups, I can definitely see progress in her work and attitude. She loves doing math flashcards and works really well independently. We found out yesterday that she’s a special education student, something you would think we would have been told earlier. But I’m glad we didn’t know, because I wouldn’t have wanted to treat her any differently. As far as we have seen, she is perfectly capable of learning in the same ways as every other student in our class, and with encouragement and praise is eager to participate. Unfortunately, special education is often used in low-performing schools as a way to separate students who may lower the schools scores if they remain in "regular" classrooms, or when students are hard to manage. I can't imagine that Jasmine fits either of those criteria, but I also can't imagine that she is truly in need of special education. I think a little bit of love and encouragement is doing wonders for her. But I'm no expert.

More student stories later.

On to my blog title....Today was my "TFAvorite" day (we try to work TFA into as many words as possible--so far we only have TFAil, so we could use some help) because we were surprised with an early release from work. Usually after the kids leave we stay until 4:15 for sessions or work time, but today we left at 1:15! It was fabulous. I came home and immediately crashed in my bed for an hour or so, and have been working ever since. The weather has cooled off with the rain that has come through, so we're catching breaks all around!

Thanks for making it this far in my very, very long post. Just so much to say, so many stories, and so many sweet children.