To be perfectly honest, my day wasn't what one would call stellar. How I feel about my day as a whole is dominated by one period, my last of the day. We've had a rocky two days, so my last two days haven't been stellar. Whenever I get down, I try to find a nugget of goodness in my day. Luckily, I struck gold today.
One of the students in my 8th grade class came to me during transition time...3 hours after she had already seen me. I thought she forgot something, so I passively nodded her into my classroom while talking to another student. She stayed put as I finished up with the other students, so I figured something was wrong.
"J" hands me a piece of paper and asks me to read it. I start to look over it, and I realize that it is a poem. (By the way, folks, I'm not an ELA teacher nor do I pretend to be one.) As I read it, I'm moved by the fierce confidence projected from whoever's voice it is. This piece was a statement of individuality and pride in one's beliefs. To be honest, I'm generally not a fan of poetry, but this piece of poetry hooked me in to the point where I kind of neglected my hallway duty.
I finished and the only thing I could say to "J" was "Wow. Who wrote this?"
"I did, Ms. [Insane]. I wanted to share it with you first before turning it. Did you like it?"
Uh, YES! Two things struck me. First, power and confidence of the piece of student-produced poetry. Heck, let's just call it poetry. Second, she wanted to share it with me first. I can't pinpoint why, but it meant a lot to me that she sought me out to share her work. J totally made my day. I'm bone tired, but looking back on this, I endure for these nuggets of gold, when I get to see a student shine. These shiny moment light up my dark days, so in the words of my school's creed, "I must press on."
Middle schoolers FTW
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