As I mentioned in one of my first tweets this morning, I really am the Halloween Grinch. 🙂 Halloween is not my favourite time of the year (for numerous reasons), but the last 25 minutes of today made me re-think things … at least a bit!
Today was a fairly normal day for us until the last two periods. Period 6, the students participated in a Mummy Walk, and I was incredibly impressed with how well they worked together to “dress” our mummy.
After coming back to class and cleaning up the toilet paper mess, students chose to work on a math challenge (where they got to use Minecraft), play some board games, and eat their snacks. A small group of students also asked me if they could dress up our class hamster. The student that owns the hamster (that she’s lent to our class) brought in the materials for the costume and was eager to work on this special activity with her friends.
It was seconds after the girls went over to the hamster cage that I heard the scream and saw the tears. Our beloved pet had passed away. What a very sad ending to a happy day! But it was also at this moment that I saw the true character of the students in our class. Right away, they stopped what they were doing and went over to support their upset friend. They shared similar stories, listened to her grieve, and even made pictures and cards to tell her that they care. My amazing student teacher, Yakira, also took her down to the library with a friend to spend some quiet time alone and find a book to make her feel better (she loves to read).
Here we were surrounded by parties, but the feelings of a friend outweighed the desire to play games and eat special treats. Wow! I think that our vice principal, Kristi Keery-Bishop, summed things up best:
@avivaloca that makes me very happy to hear. Integrity= how well you treat others even when hyped up on sugar & having fun (new def'n) 🙂
— Kristi Keery Bishop (@kkeerybi) October 31, 2013
I couldn’t be prouder tonight of my AMAZING students, and while Halloween is still not my favourite holiday, maybe I don’t hate it quite so much after all! How have your students amazed you with their integrity? Let’s share these happy stories that remind us of just how special and wonderful our students are!
Aviva