Planting Seeds

If you've read my previous posts, you know that I'm big on trying to motivate my 5th-graders.  I want them to believe that they can do and be almost anything if they are willing to put forth the effort.  This message, like so many others sent to them, is a seed - it gets planted now with the hopes of sprouting at a future date.  That date always seemed so far away to me because my students are only ten, and for many years my former students were still only in middle school or just barely in high school.

I've finally been teaching long enough (this is my 11th year) that my former students are near the end of their formal education.  Students from my first year of teaching turn twenty-one this year, and most of them are finishing up their third year of college.

I try my best to be aware of what's going on with my former students - even if it's just through 3rd party word-of-mouth.  I know where most of them are at school, and I'm up on major life events - be they positive or negative.  In addition, there are a handful of students that I still keep in regular contact with.  I'm grateful for the time they make for me, and I always enjoy hearing their memories of the time they spent in my classroom and what they've been up to since.

It's such an odd feeling to have my students grow old.  My fondest memories of them are forever frozen at the age of 10, when they were innocent and carefree.  To see them at twice that age is astonishing.  I don't feel like I've changed too much over the past 10 years, but my students have lived half their life in that time and grown enormously - in so many ways.   They've had numerous other teachers and school experiences in that time, which make those of 5th grade seem to pale in comparison.

Emilee talks to my students while they take notes.
The students wrote news articles about her visit.

More amazing than the change in my students appearance is the realization that they are about to enter (or in some cases have entered) "the real world."  They have life and career goals and aspirations, and many of them are already taking steps to make them a reality.

One of my former students who is making her dreams a reality came back to visit my current 5th-graders recently.  Her name is Emilee, and she is a professional race car driver and full-time college nursing student.  I was her teacher 11 years ago, and then later I was her tutor and even her basketball coach for a season.  Emilee visited my classroom last month to share about her up-and-coming racing career and to talk to my students about the importance of believing in yourself and following your dreams.  She is the embodiment of the message that I try to give to my students, and so I was happy to see that they hung on her every word.  I just sat back and watched her give advice to these kids that are sitting where she used to sit, and as I did I couldn't help but think that perhaps I was seeing the growth of some of seeds that I planted.  That was a pretty incredible sight to see!

A wall of student news articles about Emilee's classroom visit and/or career.
This was the culmination of our journalism unit.

Raising Horseshoe Crabs in my Classroom

I haven't posted in a while, which I'm sure is heart-breaking to my 3 followers.   I'm all about not reinventing the wheel and making the most of your resources, so I thought I'd post a link to a blog that I was asked to write about my experience raising horseshoe crabs in my classroom.