Take the Time

So working with the high schoolers has definitely been a different experience.  Not better, not worse, just different...  Although they may give me attitude, smart off and continue to be disrespectful I love them all the same.  The little things they say or do make me smile and laugh.  Some even touch my heart and I can feel pieces of it leaving each day.  To get a little taste of what I mean I'll share a few moments and quotes that take place in my classroom.

1.  Being as young as I am in the classroom many of the high schoolers think I'm pretty much the same age as them.  One of my boys calls me by his last name.  Mrs. Canales, yup.  Ha ha I don't know who this lady is but he keeps getting me mixed up with her for some reason.

2.  "If I ever go to jail and get skinnier I'm getting that tattoo."

3.  One day my some of my students were making fun of each others faces since we were working on self portraits in class.  So I just stepped in and said that everyone is different and not one person is absolutely perfect.  Somehow I ended up telling them about my webbed toes and they freaked out and wanted to see them.  Well, being me not having a care in the world what they thought I showed them.  One kid said, "Ahh they look like a frog!"  Then one of my students who has autism goes "Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit."  and the class busts out laughing even harder.  

When the student who calls me by his last name came in the class told him about my webbed toes and his response was, "Wow thats gross, you just went from like a 9 or 10 to like a 4."  My response, "Thank God."

4. So one of my students is very loud and has a difficult time appropriate social behavior when interacting with his peers.  Usually I have to move him, ask him to stop talking and I had to send him down to the office once.  Well one day I sat down next to him and started talking with him and asking him questions about life like I usually do.  I learned quite a bit about him as a person with just the few things I had learned about him, but apparently that made all the difference in the world.  After then he started to work on his self portrait and try to do better.

One day a couple of the kids in my class said something to me that was disrespectful and this boy spoke up and said," Hey you don't talk to Miss Wilson like that!"  and got in between me and the other two students.  Later he had made a joke about me or something and then said, "No I'm just playing Miss Wilson your pretty cool, even though you did send me to the office, but I understand."  It's times like these when you feel a big piece of your heart leave.  

Since then he asked me if I would come watch his basketball game and also another students in my class.  I did, by myself which was tough for me to do, but I could tell it meant something to him.  Coming from a rough and broken home, living with only his grandma and having to go through some much trouble to use a vehicle to get to work and having to work, he needs a little support.

5.  One of my students just came about a week and a half ago.  I learned on the first day of meeting him that he wanted to go to school for art.  Well while my teacher was at a conference we had a representative for the kansas city art institutes come in to my last two classes to talk about it.  I told this student about it and he came and I wish you all could have seen the way his face lit up when the guy was presenting, it was priceless.  While he is apparently disruptive in other classes he is an angel in mine and every time he sees me in the hall he makes point to say something to me and give me knuckles.  Its amazing how the little time you take to learn one thing about a student, goes a long way.

I have learned a lot from my student teaching experiences and in life in general, and if I could say only one thing to anyone in this world, not just teachers, but coaches, employers, colleagues, parents, siblings, etc it would be to take just a few minutes of your time to get to know your student or your employee or whoever it may be.  It makes all the difference in the world.  Everyone wants to be acknowledged and feel important.  Taking a few minutes to give someone your full attention and show an interest in their life shows them that they are important and that they are significant even in this world full of billions of people.  My challenge to you is to take a few minutes out of your day this week to get to know that person you have never really talked to before or the person who maybe gets on your nerves.  I bet you will be surprised at what you find. 

P.S.  If you do decide to be brave and take this challenge I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on how it went and what happened : )