A Smile!

Today, one of my students put a smile on my face. She said, "if you were going to teach 2nd grade next year, I would want to be retained next year so I could be in your class." My heart melted right on the spot.

Vacation

My perception of the day or two before vacation was that you just try to survive the energy and excitement of the students. Now, having lived through those two days before vacation, I know that is mostly true. Art was sprinkled into the lessons pretty heavily as well as activity-based lessons. But today, with all of the energy, I was able to actually get about 40 minutes of decent math instruction and assessment completed in the middle of the day. Wow! The more I think about it, I pretty proud to have accomplished that.

Now it's vacation time and I need it. I've had too many "up past midnight" nights combined with 6am mornings. Vacation will be nice break.

Pole

Today, I walked into a pole in front of a lot of people. I was walking my students back to class following a school-wide meeting, including parents, and was so intent on listening to a student's story that I didn't see the pole. Totally caught off guard, like getting blind-sided in football. Wham! And several people were looking on. I had to smile and swear internally.

I guess I'm lucky I didn't fall down.

Teaching Secret

My secret weapon to getting through long days.

Low Riders

Today's funny story occurred during garden time. Yes, the school I teach at has several garden spots that the kids love to pull weed or play with insects in. While I was pulling up a dandelion, to young girls said, "Mr. B, you need to pull your pants up!" Naturally, I was afraid my crack was hanging out, which I have always been (or tried to be) conscious of. Besides, who knows what a 2nd grader might do. So I did a quick reach around check to make sure. I confirmed no crack was visible, but possibly some waistband was showing. Needless to say, I was a little embarrASSed.

In actuality, my pants are getting big for me. I have lost 8-10 pounds since I have started teaching, which is a good thing.

A Big Challenge

One of the biggest challenges I have encountered while teaching is trying to stay healthy. In the past 10 weeks, I have had 5 colds (or recurrence of the same single cold). Nothing too terribly serious, but just enough to distract you or drain a little more energy.

A colleague of mine said, "Don't worry! Your immune system will build itself up in 2-3 years!" Great, I can hardly wait.

On a side note, teachers (myself included) drink Airborne tablets like they are a miracle remedy. I wonder if teachers would use it as much if it weren't invented by a teacher???

Sniffed

I was sniffed last week by one of my second graders. Yes, sniffed. A young boy leaned over to me while I was reading a story to a small group and inhaled my shoulder/armpit area. Then he interrupted my reading to announce to the group, "He smells like deodorant!!!" To which the group laughed. I had to smiled and thought to myself, "I can think of worse things to smell like."

After IEP

I survived the IEP in one piece and only managed to break one law, according to my supervisor. Not too bad in my book. The meeting was a long one, but overall successful according to the people participating. I had a minor internal debate to bring the meeting to a close without full input and dialogue with the student's parent. However, I realized it would be best for the school and parent to take the extra time and hopefully have both parties feel they are on the same team. Most importantly the student will now receive the additional support they need to succeed in school.