HAPPY POST!

I want to celebrate some happy moments that I shared with my students today. We were supposed to go on a field trip to Lane Tech High School to watch a production of “Footloose;” however, Lane Tech cancelled on us last night, so we had a regular day of school. In math, the students continued practicing slope and worked with y=mx+b. They’re starting to understand how to plug in numbers for x and y and how to solve for each letter in the equation. They plugged in different numbers to find coordinate points and then had to plot them. ALMOST ALL OF THEM COULD PLOT THE POINTS WITHOUT ANY HELP! I told my students I was so proud of them and that they made me so happy today because they were finally plotting correctly! This was the topic I taught them a few weeks ago, and they showed me they learned it today! Even though the past few weeks have been difficult for me, I forgot all of it this morning after watching them plot the points without complaining or getting frustrated. It was a really great feeling to see them SMILE while working on these problems. They were on fire today, and I could see their confidence building all period.

The second moment I shared was in the middle of the day. We left math on a great note with all the students smiling and laughing at me for being so excited. “Did you drink coffee this morning, Ms. Lalani, because you’re reallllly happy…?” (I did not drink coffee. I had milk, which they laughed at when I told them that.) They worked really well throughout the day in all the other subjects, and they also worked really well with me. Two of the girls came up to me and asked me if I was going to chaperone at the Valentine’s Day Dance this Friday. I wasn’t planning on chaperoning, but I asked them if they wanted me there. They both jumped up and down and said yes with huge smiles on their faces. … so I guess I’m chaperoning on Friday!

Today was one of those days that just happened to go smoothly. Everyone was in a good mood. No one fought. No one threw a temper tantrum. No one talked back to me or my cooperating teacher. 8^th graders are seriously so temperamental. If I’ve learned anything from this placement, it’s that I should always expect to have a brand new day with my students. These students surprise me every day, and even though I’ve had a tough few weeks, today really made it all worth it.