Wednesday, May 21, 2014

5 Greatest Gifts I've Ever Received From Students

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, I have been reflecting (teachers have to reflect ALL THE TIME) on the wonderful gifts I’ve received over the past few years from students.  Now there were quite a few options to choose from, but I managed to narrow it down to the top 5.  Sadly, I couldn’t find pictures of some of them, so you’ll just have to imagine.  I’ll do my best to describe them accurately without exaggeration.



5.  Flowers

Last Valentine’s Day was a pretty spectacular gift day.  Now, I’m not the biggest Valentine’s Day fan, but I tried to rally since that kind of thing is really fun for 5 and 6 year olds.  One of my students (and it was THAT student, you know, the one that you learned their name first because you have to say it SO much because they are such a hot mess) brought me flowers.  It was the sweetest.  I even teared up a little.  I showered him with thanks, gave him a hug.  He did the shy shrug and half-smile thing, almost making up for the hours of frustration he had caused me.

I lovingly placed the flowers in a vase and placed them on my desk.  A few hours later, his mom comes in to help with (or be there for) the Valentine’s Party, which is my least favorite school activity.  She comes up to me in a panic asking about the flowers.  I showed her how I had proudly displayed them. 

And she says, “Oh, those aren’t for you.  They are for a girl in the class he has a crush on..”

So I had to take the flowers out of the vase and give them to a 5 year old.  That was a personal low point in my life.

4.  Grocery Bag Full of Hot Cheetos*

This was not a bag of Hot Cheetos.  Nor was it a grocery bag with a bag of Hot Cheetos inside it.  This was legitimately a plastic grocery sack with loose Hot Cheetos inside of it.  I wish I had taken a picture, just to prove that I’m not exaggerating.  But, sadly, I did not.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.

*For the life of me, I do not understand what the huge deal is with Hot Cheetos.  They are disgusting.  But I can’t tell you how many fights I’ve had to break up started by Hot Cheetos.

3.  A Shofar

Yes, a shofar.  If you are not familiar with this, it is a musical instrument (usually made from a ram’s horn) typically used in Jewish religious ceremonies.  This would have been a much cooler gift if either this student or I were Jewish, but we are not. 

Also, this gift was not for any particular reason.  Just a random day, he walked into the room and handed me a shofar.  I did take a picture of this to prove that it actually happened (see picture 3)

2.  Put a Bird on It!

In The Hood, you get lots of notes and pictures from kiddos who are trying to suck up to you.  This particular picture has been my favorite so far—partly because of the fact that it is of birds, partly because the birds are labeled, mostly because of the craziness of the situation surrounding the picture.

I was going about my day, having a relatively calm day (that should have been my first clue that things were about to explode).  I was doing small reading groups, and heard some door slamming and yelling going on in the hallway right outside my room.  I happened to glance out my door window to see my teammate being swung around the hallway by the lanyard around her neck.  She was desperately trying to get the lanyard off, but the student on the other side of it was having none of that. 

In an effort to save her life, I ran to the hallway and said “Hey student!  Do you like birds?”  I have no clue why I said birds.  I don’t really like birds.  Maybe I had subconsciously noticed him reading a book about birds.  But he stopped dead in his tracks and turned his attention on me.  I did a quick scan of my body, making sure I had nothing he could strangle me with, but this huge smile spread across his face.  He let go of his teacher and ran to get colored pencils and paper. 

We teachers took a second to regroup in the hall (and of course follow all administrative protocol).  Twenty minutes later, student showed up at my door with this picture (see picture 2).

From then on, every time he got angry at a teacher, we’d just ask for a picture of a bird.   He’d do all this research on the best birds to draw pictures of, and do these fantastic representations.  Teacher success!

1.  Panda Bear

I don’t really know why, but I think panda bears are really cool.  Not cool enough to collect figurines or know random trivia facts about them.  This is just a general interest that I have.  This note from a beloved student used to have a panda bear button on it, which made it even more precious than it was originally (see picture 1).

Also, the story behind this note makes it more precious.  I had a classful of super-emotional girls.  They could not go a full day without crying.  It would usually start with one crying for some non-reason, then another would start crying because the first one was crying.  Then another would cry because all her friends were crying and she didn’t know how to make them feel better.  I know it sounds sweet, but really it’s just annoying. 

We had just come in from recess, and of course all the girls were crying.  None of them could explain to me who started it or why anyone was crying, so I pulled them all out into the hallway for an intervention.  After what seemed like HOURS of snottiness and tears, it came out that one was upset because she couldn’t decide which of her best friends she should play with.  The others were crying because they could sympathize, they also couldn’t decide which best friend to play with.  So, naturally, I suggested they all play in a group together.  Apparently, second graders need more intentional time together (2’s company, 3’s a crowd).  So we made a schedule for the week of who should play with who each day at recess.

So this picture reminds me that I fix people’s feelings when they are sad.  Crushed it.

Jodie


What are the best gifts you’ve ever received from students?