Missing you...

So I'm teaching Grade 7/8 music and drama now. It's really different -- it's rotary, there are 300 kids, I have certain classes once or maybe twice a week. They're pre-teen/teenagers, and very concerned with being cool and disaffected. And I'm coming in halfway through the year. So connecting with the kids is difficult. After a while, it makes you question your effectiveness as a teacher.

Cue today -- I went back to visit my grade sixes. Sandra didn't tell them I was coming. So I stepped in the door. After a moment, one of the girls noticed me. And then I was buried under a pile of shrieking, excited girls (and waved at by a smaller group of excited but shy boys).

The kids down the hall in special ed came back to give me a hug.I literally had to pry some of them off me to send them out for recess. And again for French. Even the boys, who were too shy to hug me, found reasons to hang around and show me stuff.

And they've put a picture of me up on their classroom door.

Sometimes, all you need to make you feel better is to know you did something right.
posted by Sarah E. at 4:50 PM

---