One
of the ABSOLUTE BEST moments for a teacher is when a student FINALLY
understands something. The crazy
thing is that it really is an exact moment. You can literally see it on their face when a light finally
goes off in their head and you know they’ve got it.
I
encountered one of these much too rare moments today during my math class. While practicing subtraction with touch
points, I was working with one of my students on the question 5-5=___. He has a tough time counting
backwards so I thought I would give him a little break by explaining to him why
he didn’t even have to count backwards for this problem!
Counting
out five fingers I showed him that if I have a total of five and then I take
five away I am left with nothing.
He stared at my hand for a bit longer than usual, turned to look up at
me with wide eyes and said, “that is actually true” (like I’ve been lying to
him for the past six months?). I
said “YES and now you’ve got it!”.
He looked so genuinely satisfied with himself that I couldn’t help but
feel so happy. I was glad that I
finally said it in a way that got through to him (or just the magic number of
times it took for it to actually sick) but also incredibly happy for him.
These
are the moments that keep me going!
What a beautiful moment in time. That is certainly what keeps us- and the kids!- going!
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