I prayed my student would forget her Monday morning appointment to see me. I pointed out to God that I could really use an extra hour to be ready for my 11:15 class but at 10:00 am she showed up ready to discuss commas and semicolons.
She sat beside my desk and must have sensed my stress because she said, "Are you okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine," I told her. I pulled out a worksheet, and started discussing such scintillating topics as prepositional phrases, dependent clauses, and independent clauses. When I was finished, I handed her a worksheet to correct for comma mistakes. She got each sentence right!
Success. I was so excited I stopped caring about how ready I would be for my 11:15 class, and I scheduled her to meet with me again on Friday.
For the rest of the day, I felt satisfied with my job. Sure, I will never be done grading papers, but one person learned one thing from me this week--even if it was how to use commas.
2 comments:
Yes, there will always be papers to grade and record, but student learning is most important....and most rewarding :) I'm glad you had some success. It is a wonderful feeling that makes teaching worth it.
I teach my students a new phonics digraph every week, like /ch/. One of my students always finds the digraph everywhere in text and makes sure to point every one out to me. It makes me smile that he is learning. :)
I think that knowing that one student gets it is enough to keep me going for weeks. Yeah for your student who finds the digraphs!
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