My Dearest Wise Owls,

It has taken me a long time to write this letter.  While most teachers and students look forward to summer break, I’m having a hard time picturing my life without teaching and laughing with you every day.  I know it is difficult to understand now, but I took this big risk moving away from my family and my hometown in hopes of finally going after my dream job.  Not only did I find my perfect job, but I also found a new family: all of you.

I feel in one letter I cannot express how much you all have meant to me this year.  On bad days, you surrounded me in group hugs and promised to be my “anchor” when I was unsure of what was come.  On good days we combined lessons with cartoons, dancing, and stories about bacon to laugh through even the most difficult assignments.  I have loved all my hugs, notes, jokes, pictures, and random stories you have shared with me this past year.  They always made me want to get up and come to school no matter how tired I was.

You all should be very proud of what you have accomplished.  Our class has grown an average of over a year in reading, meaning that we made more progress than most kids do in one school year.  Everyone made a commitment in January to really push our reading levels up, and I’ve felt so proud watching your owls fly higher and higher on the chart each week.  If you keep this up, you’ll always be ahead in reading throughout your years in school.

Besides watching you learn, I’ve also watched you grow as people.  You cheer for each other the loudest at assemblies, offer to help others reach their reading goals, work together to make sure our class is a clean place to learn, and know that sometimes people just need a hug and a kind word to get through a rough time.  I am sad to let you go, but I’m excited to show the third grade teachers what *amazing* children you are.  I know I taught you a lot since August, but believe me when I say- you’ve taught me so much more.  I am so blessed to have been part of your life, and I can’t wait to see what each of you will do next.

                                             Love Always,

                                              Ms. Schrumpf

This week I was surprised by something Zaley, one of my brightest 2nd graders, brought in: a full out, multi-sentence, letter.  This was extremely special to me, and was worthy of not just sharing with my class on my desk, but also sharing to the world online.

The Envelope

Translation: I enjoyed this semester!

The Letter

Translation:

For Ms. Schrumpf,

You are what I want to be like when I grow up!  You are sweet and gentle and beautiful.  You teach me not to be greedy and selfish.  You are a great teacher for me.  Thank you for teaching me everything you have to me.  And you are very nice to everyone.  I wish you were teaching me next year.  Turquoise Turquoise (she was very proud of mastering this on a spelling test at the time).  You are AWESOME!  XOXO

Love, Zaley

I will not go cuckoo (she gets hyper in the mornings).  I will miss you.

The Back of the Letter

Translation: Hope you have fun this summer.  Thank you!

If I haven’t said it enough, I love my wise owls more than most things in this world.  I know things are winding down post-testing for a lot of teachers, but I find myself cramming more and more into every day to get my kids as ready as possible for third grade.  I have been so blessed to have the class that I’ve had this year, and knowing there are only 5 weeks left with them makes me sad.  I must make every second count, and appreciate every moment I have around these 19 little faces : )

So on Monday, like many afternoons, she was the last one to get picked up at the car ramp from my class.  I made a split second decision to try to make the most of this time and sat down next to her on the concrete.  I started asking her about her weekend and how life was going in general.  We talked about how she doesn’t see her mom, and sometimes she has to stay with her grandparents because her dad has to work.  She loves her dad a lot, and I know she misses him when he can’t be with her.  She said she misses her mom a lot, too, and that sometimes she just looks at her pictures to try to remember her.

This whole conversation took about 5 minutes, but I took the time to really listen to her open up a bit and I responded with things like “that sounds really hard” instead of “things will get better.”  A lot of my kids do come from tough situations, and sometimes I think they just want you to acknowledge that.  I also tried to make it clear to her that I care about her, too, and gave her one of those longer than usual hugs when we parted ways.

I figured this conversation was a start to a better relationship, but then today something unexpected happened.  She handed me a letter in the morning and said “This is for you.”  I opened it up and it had two things.  One was a colorful drawing of us hugging, and the other was a note that said (in kid spelling):

“Dear Ms. Schrumpf,  I think you are the teacher of my life.”

I honestly almost cried when I read it.  I love those moments where you transcend the role of teacher and form that loving relationship with your students.  Some take longer than others, but after almost 6 months, 5 minutes helped me make that jump with this girl <3

The girl's letters with another student's Owl Valentine I got today.

::Passes all the cards to boy student::

Me: Ok.  Why don’t I take you on.

::The three other kids start oooooooo-ing and laughing::

Girl: WHAT?  That’s not fair.

Me:  Sure it is.  Let’s just play a few rounds.

::Boy student flips cards up over and over::

Me: 8, 27, 56, 42, 81, 36, 63….

::Everyone (including the girl) laughs hysterically::

Girl:  ::throws arms up in surrender:: Okay, I’m done.  I don’t want to play anymore.  You win.

Me:  It’s okay.  Someday you’ll be able to beat me, too.

Sometimes I think kids need to remember to be humble and laugh at themselves.  Hopefully I got this across, and we all had a blast at the end of the session.  I know my Principal said tutoring needs to be all business, but those kids (and me) just needed a laughing break today

Right after math, I told two girls to stop chatting and work, but when one wouldn’t listen and was caught talking again for the 10th time that day, I sent her to another class.  She is usually a good student, so this was hard to get as mad as I needed to be.  In the 60 seconds I left the room to put her in another class, another girl had burst into tears because she said someone was bullying her.  The culprit was a girl who five minutes earlier came back from Creek language class almost in tears saying her ear hurt so bad.  I didn’t write her a nurse’s pass when I got back, because she wasn’t crying anymore, seemed fine,  and apparently had the energy to pick on someone else.

So as the last half hour rolled around and all my kids were back from Creek language class, I was done.  I typed up a letter to parents saying that this afternoon was very bad, and that kids were talking, not following directions, and picking fights instead of learning.  The catch is I wrote it from a student’s perspective- admitting these issues as if I had done them as part of the class.  I projected the letter to the class and told them to take out a sheet of paper and pencil and copy it.  I also stated that they needed to bring it back signed tomorrow, and to explain to their parents that EVERYONE wrote the same letter.  I didn’t want parents calling worried their kid is the cause of everything- today was genuinely a class effort.

After these instructions, it was absolutely *silent* in my class for the next 15 minutes.  No one complained or asked questions.  Everyone just sat and copied with not so much as a sigh.  I was so impressed by this that I gave them a class marble (they earn marbles as a reward for good behavior as a class) and let them all clip up once on the behavior chart.  I told them I was very happy that they accepted a punishment without complaint instead of making it worse.  A lot of kids at my school, especially in the upper grades, tend to make bad situations worse.  I always try to reward my kids for turning around bad decisions.

I also know that part of today’s failure was my lack of sleep, so I made sure to hug all of my kids today before I left and told everyone that tomorrow we will start fresh.  I would work on being more patient and nice, and they would work on staying focused.  They all got excited about this and wanted to tackle me in a group hug.  We ended up leaving the classroom joking and shouting our wise owl chant:

Who are we?  Wise owls.  What do we do? Learn a lot!  Who are we?  Wise owls!  What do we do?  MAKE GOOD CHOICES!

I <3 my wise owls.  They honestly make me a better person.

Hailey: I wonder if you have any Haileys in 2nd grade.
Me: I know there is a Kaley next door, but I haven’t heard of a Hailey.
Hailey: I know there is a Zaley!
Me: Yes. She’s in my class.
Hailey: I know. ::In a “this should seem obvious” tone:: We’re friends because we have the same backpack.

I love elementary school friendship rules. They are so ridiculously simple.

I also had this response on a class survey about your best friend today:

Question- What do you like best about your friend?

Answer: She knows how to play Barbies right.

I am now dying to know- Is there a wrong way to play Barbies?

Now, a great benefit of being a teacher is that when you are mad about something immature, and you know you can’t complain to adults about it without sounding petty, kids will always be willing to listen.  And not only will your class listen, but they will defend your side forever.

So here I am, weeks later, teaching my kids the oo and u sound during our short phonics lesson:

Me: Yes, this word is “crook,” like a thief or a burglar.

Ricky: Like the CROOK who stole your yogurt.

Me: Exactly, Ricky.  Thank you!