How Do Students Describe Me?

Today the prompt for Big Time Literacy's blog is: How would my students describe me? Well, this is difficult because I am not one of my students. I had this very discussion with Third grade guided reading groups this year and they described me as "fun" and "nice." Those are very blanket or generic descriptions. So what does that mean? That is what I wanted to know. Personally I think they will describe me in the future as caring. And I think they will try to describe that feeling you get when you know that someone truly cares about you. I asked, what does that mean, "You're nice."? Because I am not always nice. They said, "yeah, but when you're not we know it is because we need to work harder...." Which was pretty much the rule. If you do what's expected, guided reading group was pretty easy and simple.

I have heard I have a reputation for being "hard" and "tough." I think I am those things too. I received the dreaded note from a parent... "this is the second time this week that my son has cried about his homework...." and digging down and getting to the heart of the problem and then empowering this student to do the research! I have to say that I had several second grade students that were overwhelmed when we started together and they came out of my group being researching experts! They went from wanting all the answers given to them to knowing that they could find them and going after it! They wanted to be in my group because it wasn't "boring." And we always presented outside of our group. The second grade teachers were fabulous about giving up some on their read aloud time after lunch to allow for presentation. Such as the Wild Yak project, which is still my favorite one from the year. You can find that post HERE.

My kindergarten students said I was fun and nice. And they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I loved and cared for each one of them. I am proud of that. That is my goal, to love and show that love in a way that students remember it.