The star of the party was definitely Santiago; he was dancing and singing to reguetton, his face was as red as a strawberry, and his rapping skills were clearly under development. As most of us laughed at him, Yeun, one of the shyer students from class, came up to me and timidly untucked a card that she had folded into her right pocket. As my eyes ran through the first line, a deep feeling of kindness and affection flowed through my body and raced to my extremities.
And that's why the card came as such a surprise to me. In it, she wrote about how much she had appreciated the moment in the bathroom, and explained that she was writing this because she didn't feel comfortable speaking about it. I know it sounds like something menial, but when one of the shyest students in the class does something like that, it means a lot because it shows you that they are analyzing what's going on around them. They may not be talking about it, but deep inside, they get it.
1. how do these stories connect, and 2. are you just going to tell us anecdotes?
It's once that student-teacher connection has been established that the "job" becomes more than just a "job". You begin sensing their energy, and their energy turns into purpose for you, purpose that goes beyond simply giving a kid a grade. Miss. Mattison pinpointed it in a comment she made on one of my previous blog entry: "you become their coach, not just in the academic sense, but with friendships, stress, learning to organize, priorities, etc.". If I think back to my childhood, I can easily remember the name of all of my teachers since EC4. Why? Because in some way or another they were all my coach for a year; a different coach for each different stage of my life. Getting the chance to be a coach with Ms. Caro's class, even if it was just for three weeks, has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.