Una conexión fuerte

Para los maestros, es importante establecer relaciones buenas con los estudiantes. One of the best things about teaching, I think, is getting to know the students. I feel like this past month I've really connected with a lot of my kids. Because my research is on writing, they write for me every week and although it's a lot of grading, it's pretty fantastic just to hear what they have to say. Sometimes it's just funny, like hearing that half of the students' favorite restaurant is Golden Corral and the other half prefers McDonalds. Sometimes it's sweet, like reading how much of an impact certain teachers and family members have made in their lives. And sometimes it hurts, like seeing how hard life is for some of these kids, how some of them face issues at 9 years old that no adult should ever have to face.

But either way, I feel like this project is helping me get to know my students on a whole new level and I'm loving it. This week especially, I feel like I've really been able to connect with one of my girls. She's just as sweet as can be but kind of painfully shy. It can be so hard to get even the slightest sound to come out of her mouth sometimes. If she could, I'm sure she would go the entire day without talking, and sometimes she almost does just that. But if you can get her hands to uncover her face long enough to see her smile, she's just the sweetest thing in the world. But life is hard for her and school is too. Sometimes she just shuts down and you can't get her to do anything or even look at you. This happened a lot this week and I felt like one day in particular she just was not responding well to me or anyone and was getting really frustrated. So that afternoon I was talking to her and asking her how things were. She said they were bad and I told her I could tell, because it seemed like she was shutting down. She kind of smiled like people told her this a lot. I told her that I knew how hard it was but that we had to find a way to not shut down, to keep going, even when things get really hard. That I wanted to help her to find a way to do this. So we talked for a bit and then the bell rang. On her way out the door, she gave me the biggest hug and said, "Goodbye, Miss Datzman!" Her spirits had lifted and her voice was clear. The next day, when she was starting to shut down during math, I just went over to her and talked to her a bit, got her to get a drink of water and gave her some encouragement. She came back ready to work. She hung around me all during recess that day and the next. Then, when I was working with her and another girl on math, she started talking a little bit louder. She was shy at first but then started gaining confidence and it was fabulous. It probably didn't look like anything from the outside. I mean, what's the big deal about a student answering a few questions out loud when correcting a math test? But in that little moment I could see our connection. I could see that she trusted me enough to talk and was going to put forth the effort because she knew I cared and believed that she could. Some of these kids have been conditioned to think so poorly of themselves that they just don't even think that it's worth trying. But when you can build up their confidence enough to get them to see that they can do it, and when they know you believe they can, anything is possible. It's things like this that remind me that I have the best job in the entire world.