The best part about being a teacher is...

My first thought that popped into my head was "summer break." And truthfully, it IS a time for me to come down off the high speed treadmill, relax, make my own plans--NOT lesson plans. And usually summer includes a trip to Iowa to visit my family (parents) and a trip to Morocco to visit my husband's family. But another answer is that I like the relationships that I build with students and I enjoy the challenge of helping them develop a love of learning.

I love it when a kid finally starts thinking he/she CAN 'get it'. I teach students with IEPs, so they often have had a LOT of failure before they even get to me.

Year before last, I met a boy in 4th grade who had moved around to many different schools. He didn't know the short vowel sounds. He couldn't smoothly blend a 3 letter word. He had basically given up on learning to read, and had a bad 'attitude'. (Gee, wonder why ...) He was in a group of NINE students with varying abilities. I saw them for 45 minutes a day. It was a 'trying' year in many ways with the other special education teacher being replaced after about 2 months of school. We pretty much were at 'square one' again at the end of October. I finally managed to get the group moving with the assistance of a para. By the end of the year, this particular student was reading at about a beginning 2nd grade level, but he had gained a lot of ground. The best part was that he had started to believe he could learn to read. One of the reading programs we use gives an 'improvement' score. At the end of the year his was over 600%. His family had moved during the school year to the neighboring district, but his parents got him to us every day. At the end of the school year, I begged his mom to let us have him another year, even though I knew it wasn't easy for them to get him to us. Mom was a bit emotional because no one had ever acted like they wanted this boy in class before! We did have him again last year. He's still not 'up to grade level', but he missed passing his state test this year by only 1 or 2 questions! (He also had a much better year behaviorally!)