Magic

As my sixteenth year of teaching concludes, just doing a bit of reflecting on how lucky I am to work with amazing educators and teach the best kids.

A few weeks ago,  during our poetry unit, we made all the students write a few poems. While I usually write the pieces I ask kids to, I hadn't yet, so when a student asked me, "Well, where's your poem, Brezek?" I decided I had better get to work. This is what came about.

Magic
Once upon a time
I stepped into a kingdom
where I was queen
and students were my little monsters

In the beginning, many days I felt
     Confused
     Overwhelmed and sometimes
     Sad
because my apprenticeship
had not yet prepared me
for the spells I had to cast
over my students.

In time I earned my wand
that radiates stardust over the littles, like
     love, and
     belonging, and
     acceptance;
making them sparkle and shine
inside and out.

The monsters picked up all those ELA tricks:
     20 pages a day
     Journals and quickwrites
     Signposts and book clubs
     TIQA and poetry
     Acing assessments

But even more dazzling was our family.
Kids quickly
     became besssstfriends
     joked together
     said hi in the hallways
     let their true selves be seen as they
     had lunch together and
     loved one another

Sixteen empires have come and gone
and not one has quite been
the special realm
that is
BB3

Thank you
for making my teaching life
magical.

Next year I'll be at Heritage, a school that is such a special place. I will continue as Literacy Coach but not have a section of ELA anymore. Hoping to coteach with a few of our teachers in various units throughout the year and can't wait! (Well, first day of summer... so I can wait a bit!) ;-)

Hope all the teachers have THE BEST summer vacation!