Proud Teacher

01.16.2011

While doing some yard work today, I was thinking about my day yesterday with my 8^th graders and realized that I was really proud of them. We read a somewhat difficult story in class in which there were a lot of new Lithuanian vocabulary words, but they stuck with me and we worked through it together. I’m building the curriculum as we go so these stories that we’re reading are new to me and, as a result, I can’t really predict how the lesson is going to go. The great thing about building a curriculum from scratch (and having a principal who lets you do so) is that you have total freedom but the drawback is also that you have total freedom and that you have a 50-50 shot of the story being engaging. By never having taught a story, you enter the lesson blindly, if you will. So when I’m able to grab the students’ attention enough to see in their faces that they’re thinking about my questions I’m very proud of them. And I hope I remember to tell them so next week.