in the interest of my sanity

positivity is hard to maintain at this time of year. the end-of-the-year stresses outside of the classroom. the deteriorating behavior inside of it. from here on out, i'm going to have to follow a rant with a rose-colored glasses look at work, because i hate being so down on so few, when i should be high on success.

edition one. this boy struggles with writing. he's still learning english, though you'd never know it to have a conversation with him. he's a fluent speaker in two languages, with little trace of his native spanish. he busts his hump day in, day out, with the best attitude you'd ever want to have in a student. give me a class full of him, i'll be challenged, but happy. he's made a year's growth this year in reading. today, he wrote his best paragraph all year. on topic, five sentences, clear ideas, main idea, details. all it took was that little extra support before he started writing. instead of head-scratching confusion, he wrote for thirty minutes like he knew what he was doing. now i finally know what it takes for him to succeed in writing. too bad it was so late in the year!