I’m joining up with Ruth Ayres for her weekly link-up, Celebrate This Week. Check out all of the posts linked up at her blog HERE. Thanks for starting this, Ruth!
Today I
received a ring from a student. He pointed out the school colors he had woven
together and also how one side also included my favorite color, the blue that
is in the ocean. I thanked him and immediately put it on my finger. One of the
other students at the table looked up from a project she was working on and
said, “You sure do love us, Mrs. S., don’t you.”
And with that, my friends, my heart was full. You see the start of the year is
both amazing and exhausting. I don’t think a year has begun where I felt like
everything was working well until at least October hit. I have begun to realize
that I place completely unrealistic expectations on myself to have everything
operating in the fall just as it was in the spring. Today I decided to let go
of that and look around at the reasons I should be celebrating.
Impromptu
reading clubs. I glanced up from the spot I was conferring from the other day
and realized many of my students were in clusters around the room and on the
landing outside our door. When I moved around to check on them I realized that
so many had created their own reading groups or partnerships. We had the
Babymouse group, the Lunch Lady group, the Mike Lupica group, and more. If I
had assigned it, I doubt they would have been interested. As it was, they were
creating these learning communities on their own.
Learning
for learning sake. I have many students who love to extend their learning this
year. Some go home and blog on their own time without it being assigned. Some
have created newspapers, magazines, and other projects even though I haven’t
required it. Many come back from Math or Social Studies and choose to teach me
about what they are learning. They don’t stop because the assignment is over,
but it is almost as if they are just getting started.
Remembering
9/11. For the anniversary this year I read 14 Cows for America and then
shared this video:
We then did
a quick write – how can kindness change the world? What I want my students to
realize is that they do indeed have a power and it is the way they choose to
view life, to treat others. This video made me cry every single time I played it on Thursday. Explaining to my
students that it made me cry with gratitude for the kindness that is displayed
was a lesson all by itself.
It has been
an exhausting week, but an interesting week nonetheless. It has been a week
where I have been frustrated while I have watched adults lose focus – to fall
victim to negativity and forget that children (our own and the ones in our
communities) should be at the forefront of every decision we make. If they are,
we cannot go wrong. But it has also been a week full of kindness, love,
relationships, and more. I look at my students and my mind races with where I
want to be, but then realize that we are, indeed, exactly where we should be. A
glance up from my front table at study hall found a group of boys working on
creating a magazine, some other boys reading and discussing books. Seems like a
perfect world to me.
