yesterday was open house at the school (11 hour day but we don’t talk abt that). kids get their schedules n see the classrooms n shit.
I saw a few of my kids from last year, and I joked w them “you’re not in 7th grade again this year, right?” and they’d laugh, “no I just wanted to come say hi”
I had a few of those but there was one in particular that really hit me hard after I got home.
S was one of my “good kids” in my “bad class” - in reality, they just put 25 of the biggest personalities in the same room, and unfortunately they didn’t mesh well.
Anyways - this kid is really hard working, honest, all the good qualities you wanna see in a student. At the same time, he’s got a good group of friends and socially doing well too.
Half way through the year he hit a little block and got like a C+ or maybe a B-, which was a red flag to mom bc he’s always been an AB student and that was lower than his expected.
She and I conversed via email, and we came up with a plan to get him back on track, get him caught up. Frequent reminders to double check work (to minimise silly mistakes), asking for help, things of that nature.
He ended the year strong with a B+ or maybe A- average, and because of his initiative, I even recommended him for the summer math program to skip into algebra for the next year.
When he came in “just to say hi,” he told me about the summer program and how excited he is for algebra this year. Mom reiterated how much I positively impacted him and how much they appreciate me etc.
At the time I was in work mode and none of it registered, but once I got home and started telling my bf about it, I realised that already, at not even my 3rd full year of teaching, I met my goal:
To make a difference in a kid’s life.
I know the “you touch all students’ lives!” thing but… hearing it directly really solidifies it and cements it in, yknow?
I bawled like a baby before falling asleep.
I really did it.
I made a difference in a kid’s life.
