Love these third graders / hate to say goodbye - #SOLSC Day 23

I love March, when during the Slice of Life Challenge, I commit to writing on a daily basis. It's fun during 31 days of posts to watch the ebb and flow of my writing. Some days I'll be incredibly pleased with how a post turned out; other days I'll just be glad I posted anything at all. A huge thanks to the gang at Two Writing Teachers for hosting, organizing, and commenting on this ginormous event each year. I appreciate the community of writers you encourage the entire month of March, and all the Tuesdays the rest of the year. Thank you, thank you.

**This March, I plan to connect as many posts as possible to my #OLW for the year - SAVOR.** 

I love working and collaborating with adults as a coach, but when that work allows for interaction with students as well, those are opportunities I savor.

Today was my last day ever in another one of my schools. There have been some state assessments during my time here, but there has also been some wonderful learning. Many of those learning opportunities involved me collaborating with teachers in their classrooms with their students.

Let me share three scenarios that happened on my last day today:

Scene 1 - 3rd Grade

With piano versions of Disney songs quietly playing in the background, a purposeful hum of activity was happening in one writing workshop. The teacher and I were working on refining conferring skills, and we had the privilege to spend time with several students talking about their opinion pieces. As we conferred, we found one teaching point for each child, and they left our table beaming with the confidence of assured writers with a plan. It made my heart sing seeing their pride.

Scene 2 - 3rd Grade

In another classroom, the vibe was a bit more frenetic as students were planning, scripting, practicing, and recording themselves and partners sharing about their favorite books or book series. Though the noise level was higher, the energy and focus were spot on. I spent some time with one specific student who felt stressed to get everything done. He did it, though - he got his script done, practiced it several times, worked on his eye contact, and let me record him until he was happy with the results.
 He looked at me with big eyes after and said, "I made really good eye contact because I didn't have to read the script the whole time. I really knew it!"
His obvious pride in himself made me smile for hours.

Scene 3 - 3rd Grade

This entire year, I have spent much time thinking and collaborating with one teacher, and that work brought me into contact with her students frequently. Today, I swear, my heart just melted.
When they found out it was my last day at their school and I wouldn't be back next year, her students decided they wanted to take a picture with me and put it on their "family" wall - the wall showing pictures of them being a family and community. They also gave me my own small version of the family wall picture on construction paper, and they all signed it. As if that wasn't enough, the entire class wrote thank you notes to me and their teacher bound them into a book.
Heart melt... right?

I have savored all 36 of my years in education. When I try to explain it to non-teachers, they don't always understand. These three scenarios are just 3 of over a bajillion reasons that I love being an educator.