Well, Monday is October 1st. That means I've made it through over a month of teaching. Whew! The last month has had me through an emotional rollercoaster-- moments of joy, frustration, inspiration, and hope. Each day I walk into my school with no clue what is going to happen. I can come in with a very thought out plan, and the next minute it's been turned completely upside down. My mentor teacher mentioned to me the other day that a big part of being a Special Educator is using the "f word"-- flexibility! That seems like an understatement! I am in a school with some hard kids from hard backgrounds-- a lot of my kiddos have been through way more stuff than I could even fathom, and I completely admire their bravery and strength and perseverance. Even though I have days where I wonder what the heck is going on, I have so many joyful moments with kids and I feel so privileged and honored when I have the opportunity to speak words of love and affirmation into kids.
This week, I felt like God provided so many awesome opportunities for me to love on them. Because the special education office is right next to the room where the kids with referrals come (i.e. kids that are really misbehaving in class), sometimes I end up being the adult supervisor with the kiddos. Earlier this week, a little 1st grade girl came into the room, screaming and crying her eyes out. I told her to take a few deep breaths. Still screaming and crying. I told her to sit down for a minute. Still screaming and crying. What else should I do? Okay, here it goes, I'm going to try to sing to her... I sure hope no one walks in right now to hear my horrible voice. I start singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Crying stops immediately. I was like, what the heck just happened? It was amazing. And then, this sweet little smile came onto her face, and we started to calm down, and I asked her to explain to me why she was sent to the office and what we were going to do differently next time. Such a sweet moment with this young girl.
I have another student in my morning reading class that has a disorder that causes him to yell out frequently. It is really distracting to my class sometimes, but God has really allowed me to pull out the strengths this child has and recognize the beautiful things that make up this little class clown. This student has such a gift for making other people laugh, even though sometimes as a teacher, it makes me crazy because I don't need any kids egging him on to keep doing it! But bringing laughter to people is such a wonderful gift!! He also has such a gift for advocating for his needs. I ask him frequently what kinds of things we need to do to help him with the yelling out. I make charts for him, goal sheets, give him breaks during class, time him, etc. On Friday he came up to me and said, "oh yeah, Miss, I forgot to tell you about a chart that would really help me." He sat down with me and helped me draw out the chart and showed me how it would work for him. Then he said, "If you could remember to do that on Monday, that would really help me." What a great skill that this child has already developed to advocate for his special needs!! That's my hope for every student that has special needs-- that they would understand what they need in the classroom to be successful, and have the courage to ask for it.
And last, but not least, I had a student that came to me after class crying on Friday. She told me that other girls told her no one wants to be her partner because she's not smart and no one likes her. It makes me so mad when kids bully their peers. I remember being that little girl. I remember being the victim of the bullying and how much it hurt. I had such a privilege to sit with this young, sweet girl and give her a big hug and tell her I know how hard that must be and that the things those girls were telling her were lies. She was smart, she was a kind and sweet young woman, and that is the truth.
Even though I have days where I wonder what the heck I am doing and why I am teaching, if I just have 3 moments like this each week with kids, that is enough to affirm exactly why I am there-- to love kids-- to give them hope-- to believe in them. I am honored to be in that school. I have such a privilege to work with these kids, and it is such a privilege when they invite me into their lives. I am so grateful, and know that these moments will carry me through.
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