One Good Thing

Okay, so I think I might be stretching the assignment a little here since the "one good thing" I am going to write about actually happened before break, but I think it's worth bringing up!

Anyhow, my mom had to have a somewhat sudden surgery and I am the only family member who's even in the state, so when they said she needed a solid week of round the clock care it was obvious that I would be jumping in to take care of that. They wound up scheduling the surgery on the last day of school before winter break, which meant I had to miss that day.

I like to prepare my kids for sub days so I can put more responsibility on THEM, so of course I told them what was going on. There are always about a million questions ("Who's the sub? What are we doing? Will your mom be ok? Do I have to do the work? What if a chicken ate a taco? etc...), but as those questions died down, I figured that would be the end of it. Then one of my students (who tends to be easily distracted and goofy) stands up and says, rather passionately, "We have to do something." The rest of the class was already moving on to the next thing, so I went over to talk to her. She was determined that they (the students) do something for my mom. She was also gathering a steadily increasing crowd of kids who were in agreement. 

I didn't want to spend my precious instructional minutes on an art project for my mom, so I grabbed some butcher paper, put it on my back table, and told the class what assignments they had to complete in order to have time to sign during class. 

I did offer the opportunity to my other classes as well, but essentially, they had to really want to sign it because they had to be on top of it with their work. 

I was amazed at how many of my tougher kids, as well as those who tend to have a harder time in math wanted so badly to write messages to my mom - who they've never met. 

By the end of Thursday, when I gathered the poster up to take home, I read through everything to make sure no one "tagged" anything or wrote inappropriate messages (I do teach 8th graders). It was seriously one of the sweetest things I've ever seen from kids this age. There were lots of positive encouragements, a surprising number of "I love you's", awesome artwork, and a fair share of funny yet sweet, honest, and heartfelt messages (these last came mainly from my boys, who totally surprised me by wanting to participate in the project so much). 

I'm so glad I caved and begrudgingly allowed my students to make this happen - I have a feeling it's a memory that will stick with me :)