One Month In

A back-to-school card from my mother-in-law.

 

One month into the school year and my students have seen me barely more than my sub. I missed six school days due to COVID and two more for meetings at the Archdiocese. Here's to hoping I make it into the building for every school day in the month of October.

One of my favorite middle school social studies beginning of the school year activities fell a little flat this year due to my bout with COVID. I bring in artifacts from my life - things like T-shirts from my days in college theatre, photo albums, cards and letters - and have students walk around the room and take notes on each item. All of my new social studies classes were able to complete this part of the activity. But the second part of the assignment has them writing a biography of me from the lens of a historian using artifacts to reconstruct the life of an otherwise unknown person. The final step in the process is to debrief the reality of the artifacts from their biographies of me. (For example, I attended Space Camp and participated in an archeological dinosaur dig as part of teacher professional development, but the photos show me in a flight suit and actively excavating a hadrosaur scapula). This is a jumping off point to discuss how historians know what they know and the reasons they might make mistakes, especially when studying the ancient past. Unfortunately the middle piece of this project was not done this year. By the time I recovered enough to return to school it felt too late to resurrect that lesson and complete it according to the original plan.

It certainly has been a different sort of start to the school year. Needing a sub for eight school days during September has never happened to me before. Nor have I ever before missed a curriculum night in my 22-year career. Thankfully, my students and their families have seemed to handle it very well. I am having a blast with this new role. When people ask me how my school year is going, I can genuinely reply, "It's so much fun!"

I wanted to share some of the highlights of the school year so far, because it really has been a ton of fun.

• On the first day of school one eighth grader told me halfway through her first class with me, "I already have mad respect for you, but I don't know why."
• When receiving new spirit wear with the school's logo, a Nike logo, and each student's last name across the back, one boy said in a deadpan, "Saint Luke, growing together in faith. Brought to you by Nike." (Growing together in faith is our theme this year.)
• Another student quote, "You seem like the kind of person who was popular in high school." (I absolutely was not popular in high school.)
• I assigned an open-ended project where I told students they could show what they had learned in any format they wanted. As they asked questions and the truly open-ended nature of the project hit them full force, I heard, "This is great!", "I'm kind of excited," and "This class is so chill."
• I am teaching siblings of several students whose older siblings (mostly brothers) were in a fifth-grade class of mine before I left the school and came back. Many of them and their parents have reported to me that I was one of the older siblings' favorite teachers.
• Former fourth graders (now in fifth and sixth grade) continually smile broadly and wave at me, and many have said some variation of, "I'm looking forward to having you as my teacher again!"