Day Nine: An Accomplishment

Day Nine: Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care).

I've sifted through old rosters to try to tell a great student story, but nothing flashy or stand-out comes to mind. I know that I have a tendency to focus on what's not going well--which makes me a reflective problem-solver, but also unfortunately means that I overlook a lot of good that happens in my classroom every day.

Here's something small. Every year, the final question on my course evaluation is "A time I knew Ms. Griffin cared about me as a human being was _________________." I tell the students that this does two things for me: 1)it's a shameless way for me to feel good about what I do and 2) it helps me see the little things I do that really make a difference.

I'm still doing paper surveys (I know!) so even though these are anonymous, I can identify 95% of their handwriting. I get some blanks, some generic responses, and some that blow me away. But what I'm most proud of is that all different "types" of kids can come up with heartfelt and meaningful responses--the honors students, the struggling students, the easy ones, the challenging ones. And this shows me that I'm doing something right in connecting with kids.