Good Thing You Were There

Choosing a blog name feels so permanent! I've put off starting a blog for a while simply because I couldn't pick a name...I wanted it to be meaningful, memorable, not-too-short-and-not-too-long, with a nice ring to it :) Like they always do, my students came through!

On my last day of student teaching, my mentor teacher put together this book with letters from all of my students: 

The kids wrote the sweetest letters and my mentor glued each student's picture next to their note. One of the boys in my class wrote this note:

"Thank you so much. After all, you've done so much things for us

like teaching us so much...and remember that one time I couldn't get through

it but you helped? Good thing you were there!"

The funny thing is, I know the exact moment he was talking about and at the time he didn't seem as grateful as I pushed him to finish his work! Ends up even eight-year-olds can be reflective and be thankful that someone helped them along the way :) 

In several of my interviews, I was asked to describe a moment that characterized my teaching or that characterized a teacher's success. Of course I always aim for high student achievement and growth both personally and academically, but the most important thing to me is building a community that supports each other and challenges each other. At the end of every year I want my students and I to be able to say to each other, "Good thing you were here! I couldn't have gotten through this year without you!". This student helped me remember all of the great moments this year when I got to see that community in action, and served as the inspiration for my brand new teaching blog title :) Let's all cross our fingers that I have many more of these moments to share as I being my first year of teaching next year!