The past week there has not been a lot of love passing around the halls, classrooms, and offices of the school. The countdown to PSSA is on and as lists are being made, tests are being labeled, and pencils are being counted I haven’t felt like I had a lot of love to pass around.
Then, as I was feeling completely loveless three things happened that brought the teacher love pouring back into my heart…
First, my fifth grader came home and when asked what they did in language arts today she replied, “well, we worked on some generating strategies for persuasive writing in our writer’s notebooks.” The look of delight on my previously drab face must have given her a cue to continue…” Yeah, we made lists of things that make us mad, things that make us happy, and things we talk to our friends about a lot. I have a lot of great ideas that I want to try now, it was awesome!” I have always loved her language arts teacher but this brought the love flowing out!
The next also involves my fifth grader and her great teachers. Her parent letter for student-led conferences, usually a rather drab piece of writing, brought tears to my eyes. Obviously her class worked on not just writing letters but crafting letters. Her voice came shining through and we learned things about her experiences in school that we didn’t know. To top it off, she pointed out in the letter where she “played with” using short sentences like the ones in the mentor text her teacher shared with them. The love was overflowing!!
Finally, as I was walking the halls with a brighter smile on my face due to the love of the past 24 hours, a teacher said to me “we are working on snap shots today if you want to come in and watch.” I rearranged plans in my head and ran to the room. What I saw made me forget all about PSSA pencils, calculators, and highlighters. The teachers used a short paragraph from Little House on the Prairie as a mentor text and then actually used a picture to demonstrate taking a close up snap shot. The kids were captivated and the images in the picture, being brought closer and closer helped them make the connection. When I heard a boy say, “It’s like making an inference in reading” I knew the love was back to stay.
Teacher love…it feels good!