Today I was expecting the same old "Valentines Craziness" with my class of Monsters! (No, really we're the Room 14 Monsters) They truly are an absolutely FABULOUS CLASS that I am so lucky to have! This morning driving to work, I began dreading the expected sugar rush running through their veins and knew it was going to be one of those "3 cups of coffees before lunch" days!
As we kicked off our morning with the kids having their 100 Day Cereal Breakfast together, a little mellow playlist on Songza running through the speakers, I puttered about the room cleaning up a bit…..then I found myself really listening to the conversations these guys were having. Sometimes as teachers we spend so much talking at them or with them, that we forget to listen to our students. And I don't mean listen in the sense that we listen to their needs and wants - but TRULY listen in the way they relate to each other. There's the usual "hellos, good mornings and how are you's" that we all hear in our classrooms each day. But, this morning as I listened in on the conversations, I found they ran a little deeper… I heard a few kids ask each other how their night was. Did they sleep well? How their Taekwondo lesson was last night. These kids were truly relating to each other on a different level. It wasn't just the relating, ongoings and conversations of a bunch of kids who just "go to school together" and have their "school-related" small-talk. It was them taking a true interest in each others lives.
Now.. was this part of my "great plan" of creating this strong classroom culture? Or… was it that it was the internal "good" and kindness of these 7 and 8 year olds that just made them … GREAT. KIND. CARING. THOUGHTFUL.
I'm pretty notorious for spending the first 2 months of school focussed strictly on creating classroom community. That is one thing I have always said that as a teacher I wanted first before I even looked at the curriculum. I truly wanted my kids to feel connected, to know that when they walk through that classroom door, we are one big (monster) family. I wanted what every other teacher out there wants…. for them to feel safe, loved and feel like they matter!
As the day went on, it was time to hand out valentine cards, lollipops, candy hearts and packages of Fun Dip (eek!). When all my students returned to their desks to open up and go through their valentines, all of a sudden the volume went from 0 to 100 in 20 seconds! … but in an amazing way.
As students were going through their cards, they were shouting out "thank you" to each individual person. They opened up each valentine, read the inside, looked around the room to make eye contact with that person and belted out a HUGE, LOUD "Thank You"….personalizing each one! "Thank you, *Sarah! I love Monster High!" "Thank you, *Cody - these monster pencils are great!" "Thank you for the cookie, *Sam! They look delicious!"…. even for a child who did not have valentine cards to hand out (I printed some extra off for him earlier in the day) - even though the kids had seen he had gotten them from me - they still thanked him and made him feel like he wasn't any different----- "Hey Mathew*, I love that your valentines are pink!" shouted one student to him. . .. and so on and so on!
I looked around the room and thought to myself "….without direction, without prompting, not a single adult intervention - these kids were truly.. kind. They were caring, empathetic, understanding, all of the above!
So I still wonder…..Was I looking at the product of a teacher's continuous dedication and focus to create a tight-knitt classroom community … or ……was it truly coming from deep inside of them? In the end I decided……….. the question doesn't need an answer…. just enjoy the moments as they happen.
Happy Valentine's Day!
N
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