Thin Mints

There’s nothing quite like sharing a box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies with your students.
I think one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned while teaching has been forgiveness. In a way I’m talking about a teacher’s ability to forgive and forget when a student misses an assignment, disrupts class, comes unprepared. But I don’t really consider those offenses things that need forgiven anyway, more skills that need learning. No, what I’m really impressed by every, single day is my students’ ability to forgive me. I’m not perfect, not even close. In fact the number of times I mess up on a given day is embarrassing. Maybe I let my frustration show more than it should, or I check a problem wrong that shouldn’t be. Perhaps I don’t get a whole story when disciplining a problem, or I don’t give directions as clearly as I could. And maybe those aren’t things that call for forgiveness always, either, but their things for which my students are perpetually patient.

Teaching, for me, nourishes the soul. The thousands of questions that bombard me every day, that cause me to acquire a slight twitch in my left eye, are also the things that make me smile, laugh and learn.

A couple of weeks ago the fifth grade had a Valentines Day party. Technically, the fifth grade was required to bring everyone a Valentine, if they brought any, but the Valentines…. lovely. I got a stuffed elephant. Hello!?!? Wonderful.