Thank a teacher

If you don't have kids in public schoo and/or you don't work in a public school, you may not know that this is Teacher Appreciation Week.

At my school the PTA has a little get-together with food for us after school one day and they give us a little gift. The food was yummy and the gift was a lunch tote and a water bottle, practical and nice. My boss through the special education cooperative is giving us spiffy shirts, we got to pick the color. Also nice! The principal in my building is providing lunch for us tomorrow and the superintendent had enough donuts to feed a small army in the teachers' lounge yesterday morning. It's nice to be appreciated by the adults you work with.

It gets a little better than that for me this year though. This morning as I was unlocking my classroom door, 2 students, a brother and sister, walked past me carrying a box. The girl said, "Wait, we have to give one to Mrs. Earth Muffin!" Her brother looked at me with zero recognition on his face...I'm not well-known around the building because my kids pretty much stay in the room with me all day and the students that are aware of me usually know me because I've had to discipline them in some way. I'm often referred to as the "mean teacher". However, earlier in the year each teacher was assigned a team of students they don't normally interact with to put together a talent skit and this girl happened to be on my team. We'd had a good time together those three days that we put together their act, building a human pyramid and I remembered her rather fondly, as she was a particularly bubbly and sweet girl. She pulled out a baggie filled to the brim with candy and said, "Happy Teacher Appreciation, Mrs. Earth Muffin!" First of all, how awesome is it to get a bag full of candy (mostly chocolate, thankyouverymuch) to stash in my desk? Secondly, kudos to those parents for raising a pair of kids who would take it upon themselves to bring tokens of appreciation for every teacher in the building. Maybe the world isn't quite on its way to hell in handbasket just yet.

And then this afternoon...There's a 6th grader in my building who was a student in Mr. EM's building last year. Mr. EM was his "Bulldog Buddy", meaning the kid was struggling a little (or a lot, as the case was) and Mr. EM was in charge of spending some one-on-one time with him, just to give a little self-esteem boost and positive adult attention. This boy really liked Mr. EM a lot and when he discovered who I was earlier this year, I became cool by association. A few weeks ago I noticed this boy getting into a confrontation in the cafeteria and I intervened, offering for him to sit at our table instead of mingling with kids he regularly had problems getting along with. He jumped at the opportunity and now he doesn't just sit with us in the cafeteria, he spends his post-lunch study hall with us. I'm not stupid, I can certainly see how this kid has earned his well-desevered reputation for being Trouble, but he doesn't give me or my students a hard time at all.

Anyway...point? Where are you? I know you're around here somewhere. Ah yes, my point...today after lunch we're heading up to the classroom and he asks me if I'll be teaching in the junior high next year and I say yes. He then says, "I think I'd like to be in your class next year." I did a double-take, then thought "way to aim high, kid", then asked him if he realized what kind of class I taught. He said, "Yeah, kids with behavior problems. I get in trouble a lot." I explained that it took a bit more than a mountain of discipline referrals to qualify for my classroom and that he should really work on NOT getting into trouble a lot instead of throwing himself into the special ed. abyss that is BD. He said, "Well, you're the nicest teacher that works at this school, so I want to be in your class. You listen to me before you punish me." Awww...

I'm quite certain that if this boy was in my class our relationship would be much different. Right now, I don't put any pressure on him, I don't have many expectations for him to live up to and he's only with me during the most free part of my students' day. I told him as such and also told him that all the teachers in our building are "nice" teachers, he just had to show all of them the same kid he showed me on a daily basis.

However, it's nice to be appreciated.