It is easy to see the tough moments, the errors made, the disappointments. They’re also hard to forget. The high points feel good in the moment, but don’t always stick with me as strongly as their counterparts. I have to be conscious of that and focus on the wins so that I can keep going.
There were many low points today. Some that can be laid at my feet and others over which I have no control. I’m not going to write about those. They weight heavily enough without me giving them extra time and space in my brain right now.
This morning, during independent reading I spent a bit of time pulling some things together and getting some stuff organized. As I bustled around the room, my third graders read. At one point I heard a gasp. I turned to see what caused it and saw a kiddo reading History Smashers: The Mayflower by Kate Messner. So I had to send a tweet.
When I saw her response later, I pulled this kiddo aside and shared it. He headed back to his table at least two inches taller.
We close out our day (when I can remember) with a tweet. One of our daily class jobs is our Tweeter. After today’s Tweeter composed a tweet about our day, I showed my class the tweet from Kate Messner. By chance, we’re currently reading her Solve This! Forensics so we sent a tweet from our class account. Tomorrow, when we tweet at the end of the day, we’ll see if she’s responded. It brings my third graders an immense amount of joy to hear from authors on Twitter. It’s amazing.
As I took my class to music we passed a sixth grade class, as we do daily. They’d just finished lunch, which they eat in the band room because the cafeteria can’t host them all with good distancing. They were waiting for their teacher. I noticed one girl holding a box of Cheez-Its. I paused to share how much I love them too and then noticed that she had Cheddar Jack Cheez-Its and I always stick with the original (or reduced fat to make me feel less guilty). She immediately asked me, “Would you like to try some?” and poured some into my hand. I’ve never met this girl before. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed those Cheez-Its as much if I’d bought them as I did when they were gifted to me so generously.
As I reflect now, both of those highlights were the result of generosity from someone. We all have so much on our plates and so much weighing on us. Even now, when things are hard in so many ways, there is such generosity and kindness out there.
Finally, this was seen by the fabulous sub who was in the classroom next door to me and her sharing it cracked us all up.
Things are hard. There are many low points and many barriers to success and calm. But I have a fabulous job and I am so lucky.
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