Warm Fuzzies.

Today Elmer,one of my students, told me I was the best teacher he had ever had. It made me blush. Still, one of the things that I've learned this summer is that kids can toss around statements such as this one pretty easily.  Let's just see if he still likes me when I teach all day on Monday...

I'm beginning to come around on Math.  Seriously, the most rewarding thing about teaching is watching a student have their epiphany.  With math, it's just so concrete and tangible when they finally understand an objective.  They either get the problem right and can explain every step to you, or they can't.

This was the case with Ramon today.  His normal math group teacher had to leave early so he joined my group.  Unfortunately, he was still struggling with adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators while my students had already mastered it.  As we kept working on problems -- and he kept on making the same mistakes -- he grew more and more frustrated with himself.  Lighting up whenever he thought he got it and then darkening each time I had to correct his work.

After working through so many problems and bringing out manipulatives and drawing diagrams he finally got it in the 11th hour.  He was so proud of himself (and I was proud of him too) that he asked me for homework problems for practice.  Several high fives later, I sent him to his literacy group center.  Apparently, once he got there he kept on talking about his success in math and he asked if there were any books he could read on fractions.

It was a good day in the classroom today.