Soooooooooooooo – whose idea was it anyway….

To make those booklets by grade level? 

They were the best.  I learned something.  That is not true.  I learned many things.  The first one – we all know.  If you want to know what people really think of you – ask a kid.  I learned quite a bit about what they think of me while reading those books – and yes, I have read them all.  I was once again amazed at the things that are important to children!  I am sure that some of them will be very familiar to anyone who happens to read this summary of those books.  I laughed and I cried.  There is no way that I can share them all – but I have chosen a few.

It is important to smile at children and to give them hugs.

It is important to say positive things to them.  One young man who spent a great deal of quality time with me wrote:  "Dear Mrs. D.  I remember the day you tried to help me and motivate me to have a good day and I did.  You gave me a loop."  That memory is worth the world to me.

It is important to let them know that you care about them and will work hard to help them solve their problems and keep them safe.

It is important to let them know that you can laugh at yourself.

It is important to make connections for and with children.

It is important to hold children accountable.

Some of the things that were written did not surprise me.  I know that the kids loved the cheers and the singing that we did at the assemblies.

I was touched when many of them remembered standing around the flagpole for memorial celebrations.  I am ashamed of myself for whining about the lost minutes of instructional time on those days.

Now I know that some of the things that they remembered came from the adults around them.  I heard your voices in their thoughts.  I could tell where there was a sentence starter her or some prompting there………….but every now and then there would be a zinger.

One of them had to do with the ladder analogy.  There were several girls who had been at each other for several days.  They were 4^th and 5^th graders.  They had received green sheets – so I went to meet with them.  It was a warm spring day and their tempers were hot and I really was not far behind them.  I finally invited them to walk down the hall and sit at the table at the top of the stairs.  They took turns telling on each other.  She told someone that…. they were looking at me…you know how it goes.

I had said everything in my bag of tricks to them over the year – so I decided to try something different.  I drew a ladder and I asked them if they knew what it was.  They did not say DUH! but I am pretty sure they were thinking it.  I asked them if they knew what the word inference meant.  None of them did – but one of them said that it probably had to do with the word infer.  I said that it did.  She knew what infer meant.  We teased out the meaning of the word inference and I labeled my rather crude drawing as The Ladder of Inference.  I explained that we had learned about it at a class for teachers.  We talked about the fact that they really did not know that someone had been saying something mean about them…but they had inferred it.  They now had to make a choice as to whether they were going to climb that ladder or stay at the bottom and try to work it out.  I explained that I really wanted to climb the ladder and infer that all of them should receive a major and a day of ISS.  I asked them to convince me not to climb that ladder.  After a fairly lively discussion, I sent them back to their respective classes.  I had two thoughts as I made my way back.  One was ‘well that amounted to nothing’ and the second was ‘I know that it will not solve the problem’. 

I was right on one count.  It did not solve the problem.  However, the girls quite often referred to the ladder when we discussed specific incidents that had taken place.  What did knock my socks off was that three of them mentioned the ladder in their memory page.  And that reminds me of another thing I know.  I know that the work we do is seed planting and we never know when the seeds take root.  I was so amazed that the ladder came through in the stories – I hope it stays with them.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to see myself through their eyes.