Wearing a Tiara While Packing: A Reflection on Year Two of Teaching.

 If there was an award for packing skills, I wouldn’t place. In fact, I wouldn’t even be invited to the competition. It was a comical sight to watch me attempt to pack up my classroom at the end of this school year in preparation for moving to a different room in the building. My packing methods ranged from dumping out the contents of my desk onto the floor and sorting through it to dancing to musical theater soundtracks on a table while removing staples from the wall to wearing a tiara while scrubbing my whiteboards.

               

It’s slightly sobering to see the entire year packed up, the memories, challenges, and joy tucked inside the tiny confines of cardboard boxes. My second year of teaching came to a close as I waved to the yellow school buses chugging kids home for the summer.

             

In many ways, switching grade levels felt like being a first year teacher all over again. Although I had more strategies than when I first started, there was lots to learn (including that an important lesson on the first day of school is teaching how to turn on the bathroom light). It was a year bubbling with personal and professional growth. Growth isn’t always easy at the time as it stretches us, confronts us, and pulls us out of our comfort zone, but it’s always worthwhile.

                

I had the privilege this year of growing alongside 22 creative, compassionate, and spunky five and six year olds. They were writers, friends to each other, storytellers, and courageous learners. As with every group of kids I’d worked with over the years, I loved having the opportunity to learn from them as they learned from me.

Growth Mindset:

               

One of the things we talked about in my class is growth mindset. We worked hard to focus on effort versus perfection. I told them the first day of school that we don’t use the words “I can’t” in our room, but, instead, “I can’t yet.” Soon I found the students repeating this phrase to each other without prompting, gently helping their friends rephrase their thinking.

                

However, this also caused me to become self-aware of the language and mindset that I personally held about myself. I was drawing a picture on one of our anchor charts and made a light hearted comment to the kids that I couldn’t really draw, and one of the kids told me, “It’s not you can’t...it’s you can’t yet! Just keep practicing, Ms. B.!” On a humorous note, one day, when I was losing my voice, I told my students that I couldn’t really talk very well, they told me, “We believe in your voice! Just keep trying!”

It’s easy to throw around phrases such as “keep on trying,” and “don’t give up,” but it’s much more difficult to internalize that. My students have challenged me to embrace that mindset and to challenge the fixed mindset that whispers that “can’t” should be a common part of my vocabulary.

Intention:

I heard a saying recently that struck me: “Our intentions are not always reflected in our actions.” There is a quiet power in being intentional and following through on that.

                

A few weeks before the 100^th day of school, my class decided that we would try to complete 100 acts of kindness before the 100^th day of school. We looked for intentional ways to provide small gestures of kindness to those in our classroom, at home, and to the rest of the school.

                

I took this challenge alongside them, and it caused me to reflect on how often the busyness of life sweeps me up, beckoning me to rush to the next task without always noticing those around me. Being intentional to seek opportunities for kindness, to be the beauty and good in a world that can so often be cruel.

                

As we talked about the kindness we’d shown or seen from others at the end of each day, we realized all of the small things we did that meant a great deal. “I helped my friend when she got hurt at recess,” was a common one I heard. The friend in question would beam. “Yeah, she helped me! I liked that,” was a just as common response.

                

When we waltz through life, purposefully watching for and pursuing moments to be kind, to show people that they matter, it changes everything.

Joy:

Joy takes on a whole new meaning when you teach kindergarten. In kindergarten, in being in school for the first time, everything is exciting. The kids are eager to learn, question, and explore. “This is the best day ever,” the kids would say often, even though they had just uttered those words the day before.

Something as simple as going for a walk to listen for animal sounds or hearing a story I’d made up or making Play-Doh was met with wide-eyes and a sense of newness and joy.

Early childhood educator Loris Malaguzzi (and also the founder of my favorite early childhood educational philosophy, Reggio Emilia!) coined the phrase, “Nothing without joy,” in relation to teaching. When we look for joy in the ordinary, it so often becomes the extraordinary. My students challenged me to look for those small moments of joy constantly, and it's amazing how many seemingly tiny, magical moments I found.

Now that year two has ended, I look forward to another year of laughter, learning, and growing.

* Also, yes, I did finally finish packing up my room.