Remember, It's About Them

I've just recently moved to a new position and office and had to pretty much hit the ground running. The five boxes I brought with me have been starring at me as though to say, "Well, we aren't going to unpack ourselves, you know!". So I went in over the weekend to unpack, organize and as it turned out, do a little reflecting.

I spent 15 years as an elementary teacher and as such saw the transitions from weekly spelling lists to invented spelling to word walls. I never really minded changing grade levels, consequently it seemed like every year for the last few that I was in the classroom, I always ended up spending a full day in August cutting out a new set of word wall words!

One particular year, I had done just that, cut out a new set of words, in addition to the 500+ other things that teachers do in order to get ready for a new school year. I had a lot of ideas that year about organizing the classroom and spent much of the first few weeks of school teaching procedures so that our room would function seamlessly.

One day my second graders were putting away some supplies and instead of lining up and filing them neatly in the Harry Wong-esque way that I had demonstrated and practiced with them, there was a big pile-up of both kids and materials. As I assisted in the untangling I found that one of the new word wall words had been pulled off the wall and was ripped and wrinkled.

I am not proud to admit this, but for some reason, I lost it a little.  I'm not at all a screamer, but they knew I was unhappy with the situation.  Why weren't they more careful? Why didn't they respect the property of our classroom? Didn't they know how much time I had invested in getting everything just right?

After my little rant, as I recall, they began reading silently while I began to meet with individual students. At the end of the session, one of quietest, sweetest students in the class, Elizabeth, handed me a purple rectangle of cardboard and said, "I made this for you."




I found Elizabeth's card among my other belongings as I was unpacking today. The irony of which word wall word it happened to be has never been lost on me. Nor were all of the opportunities I realized I had squandered in that moment; to model how to cope with a minuscule problem, to demonstrate that the classroom was not mine, but ours and most important, to act in ways every day, all the time, that put students first.

We all have moments when we are not functioning as our best selves, but it's important to remember that the time we have with the students in our classrooms is finite. It can take a great many of our best moments to undo the impact of just a few of our worst. Strive every day, like the FISH! philosophy, to "Make Their Day," because really, it is all about them.

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