Summer Reading for the Young and Old

 

When the final school bell of the academic year rings, children are ready to leave all books behind and play through the long, sunny days of summer. The warmest season of the year is made for swimming, biking, running, and playing with friends.

It is also time to catch up on things avid readers want to do, which is read without interruption of school work or rigid schedules. At the same time, it is a critical time to maintain what children have learned in order to avoid the "summer slide," a term used in education that defines the loss of learning over the course of an extended break or vacation. Summer slide can be avoided without the structure regime of school and still appeal to all types of readers. Even adults who want to catch on their pleasure reading can indulge at the same time as their children.

Links for Preventing the Summer Slide

Resources to Prevent Summer Slide - Edutopia

Three Ways to Prevent Summer Slide - Scholastic

27 Fun Ways to Prevent Summer Learning Loss - Child1st

What is the Impact of the Summer Slide?

The summer slide is not the playground, but the loss of academic skills, particularly reading. Three months away from books and learning can result in two months of loss, or 22 percent of the school year. This results in teachers reviewing in the first quarter of the new school year. The children who struggle the most with summer slide are those in low-income families with fewer resources and less time. According to studies reported by The New York Times, the achievement gap has widened between the two socio-economic groups.

There are many ways that families can help close the achievement gap regardless of income. Summer learning programs can reduce the negative impact on the summer slide. While the benefits have the greatest positive results for low-income students, the literacy programs are important to all children regardless of socio-economic status. Each community has summer reading programs that encourages reading, or if not, it is possible to create one that motivates all types of readers.

Summer Reading Programs for Children

Summer reading programs make it fun for children to read and often offer an incentive for participating. Bookstores will give free books that are appropriate for the child's age group while other businesses may give a reward while motivating them to come into their store. Examples include Books a Million and Barnes and Noble.

Online programs may interest the young ones with access to the Internet and web pages full of reading logs, challenges, and interactive features. While they do not provide books, these sites require registration for challenges and prizes including:

• BookAdventure.com

• Scholastic Summer Challenge

When the bookstores are not close to home or Internet access is limited, nothing brings summer reading closer to a child than the local library. When school is out, their programs begin. Whether it is prizes for reading a certain number of books or story time that brings books to life, the public library is a free option that is cool for children of all ages and abilities. Summer services vary from library to library. According to the Collaborative Summer Library Program, libraries share the benefits of providing summer reading programs for children. Those benefits are:

• Children are motivated to read
• Children develop positive attitudes about reading, books, and the library
• Children maintain their reading skills during summer vacation
• Children have access to experiences that further their sense of discovery
• Children have access to experiences through which they can learn to work cooperatively

The Importance of Self-Selected Books

During the summer, children and teens can read more at their independent reading level rather than their instructional reading level because they are not required to focus on comprehension or vocabulary. They are reading what they want, not what the teacher assigns them. If a fourteen-year-old wants to read comics, graphic novels, or books that they have read over and over again, it should be encouraged. They are showing an interest in reading different types of printed text, and repeated readings of a text is good for fluency among other reading strategies. While the idea of summer reading is to prevent the "summer slide", the key is that children are reading for pleasure.

Where to Get Summer Books

The library is the best place to get your child's hands on a book so they can see if it is something that interests them or at their reading level. If they are participating in any summer programs in which librarians are reading the stories or talking about book titles on a particular topic, the child can find what they want on the topics that interest them. Most importantly, the books, magazines, and other resources are free with the library card.

Many libraries have a used book sale or paperback exchange. This makes it easy for young readers to get new books to read at a very affordable price. Depending on the selection, readers can find something new from books to magazines just with pocket change. Paperback exchanges are ideal for sharing books that are not as durable as those with library-binding. Often it is the romance novels that are on the shelf, but with some planning, interest, and promotion of the concept, children's books could also be exchanged for one day only or on a regular basis. Neighborhoods or circles of friends can put together a book exchange as well.

The Internet can also connect children with books. E-books are growing in popularity. Youth can download books on their handheld devices or read books from free book websites and services, especially through a library's digital collection such as Overdrive. The Kindle app on a smartphone or tablet makes it possible to read numerous books. Project Gutenberg for older readers who are interested in the classic among other titles. SmartKidzClub is a subscription-based digital library of books kids will love with contemporary content and read-along technology.

Adult Summer Reading

Local libraries are including adults in their summer reading programs as well. Children should not be the only ones to indulge in a good book or magazine. In some cases, adults earn their own prizes, such as gift cards to local book stores or other businesses, reading-related items, or other nice gifts. This encourages regular readers and summer library visitors to read the novels or magazines they want and be rewarded, just like a kid. For the adult who brings their child for a summer program, they can take the time to sit back in the air-conditioned library and read while their child is having fun with books and games.

Book lists can motivate or inspire adult readers. Celebrities from Oprah to Reese Witherspoon have their list of book club reads and summer reading suggestions. Recommendations from friends and colleagues may finally be read when there is downtime in the summer. The search term "summer reading list" can populate many suggestions from numerous sources. Goodreads recommends books based on your past reading list and from friends on Goodreads.

Get Ready for Summer Reading!

You are never too young or too old to enjoy a good book. There is more than one way to get motivated to read something new or something you have been waiting to dive into. The achievement gap does not have to grow or remain unchanged. Books are available through a variety of sources. Magazines and comics can also count as texts that young readers can read for pleasure. Motivators and incentives can be found in just as many places. Parents and children can come up with new ways to share their books and reduce the impact of the "summer slide." Some of the programs mentioned start as early as May, so it isn't too soon to start choosing your summer read today!

Other Recommended Summer Reading Sources

• National and State Book List: Did you know that most states have their own awards for books each year? These nominees are often voted on by students, so it is an even bigger honor for the author to be selected by their target audience.
• Top 10 Resources on Summer Reading
• Kindle Unlimited: Read for free for 2 months

This article is edited from a previous post on Hubpages

Writing Wednesday: Storytelling

 

What triggers your memories? Is it one of your senses or an emotion? There are a lot of stories to tell, and a memory is a great place to start.

When I collaborated with Jamie Stonebridge on Family Thanksgiving, I started with the memories, traditions, and favorite things that connect me to that holiday. When I changed my point of view to an older character, I was able to create something wonderful to share.

A lot of my writing prompts, exercises, and inspirations typically start with a memory. Whether it continues with a perspective in the present or an exaggeration for a work of fiction, it all comes together with something that can be relatable or engaging.

Need some ideas for your own prompts? Try this one and take it as far as you want.

Writing Exercise:

Start your story with two words: I remember. Make it something that can prompt the recollection of a family tale or create the beginning of a fictional piece. Here are some examples:

I Remember

I remember only one thing that night. There were only three words spoken: “I hate you”.

I remember the moment we kissed. I took a breath and my bones exhaled along with the air as I felt my body turn to mush.

I remember when we all sat around and laughed. I don’t remember what caused the gut-aching topic, just the tears of joy and good-time vibes.

I remember the look on his face when I told him goodbye. He tried so hard to make it all work out, but nothing could ignite a spark and make me love him as much as he loved me.

Writing Wednesday: Journaling

 

Mental health has been on my mind a lot these past few days. May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, and the resources couldn't come at a better time. As the country opens up more after the Covid-19 pandemic, we see how much it has affected our friends and family to be isolated or reliant on social media and technology to stay connected.

It's hard to ask for help, especially when you are stubborn enough to think that you can still do everything on your own. There is also a need to be completely open with yourself to reflect on what has happened, how you have reacted, and how those actions have affected the outcome. Our memory is not enough.

Facebook Memories recently showed me a quote that I posted on my personal page. 

"It's the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad girls never have the time." - Tallulah Bankhead

I wrote a lot when I was a younger girl. Maybe I was a good girl. I wrote notes and kept notebooks of things that happened in my life. Maybe it was for historical purposes, but I kept track of what I was doing and how I was feeling. Of course I wasn't a total angel. I mean, I had to write something that was interesting or my alibi!

And what about the bad girls? Were they bad because they could not communicate their most intimate thoughts through writing? There are other outlets for self-expression, but writing can tell a story in a narrative way that all good storytelling share. Journaling is recommended to promote mindfulness and perspective. It can track behaviors and triggers, like those that define a "bad girl". These days I find it challenging to vent to a friend like I used to because they have their own issues they are dealing with. My boss is less likely to ease up pressure at work because they too are struggling with the work load. Journaling is my Writing Wednesday exercise, not just for writing prompts and story elements, but for mental health benefits.

Writing Exercise:

It's time to bring out the journal again. How you do it is up to your own style. There are plenty of notebooks at your fingertips from traditional school supplies to beautifully bounded notebooks. Most are blank but some have prompts and ideas to springboard where your expression can fly. 

Not enough time to journal? Pish posh! Do you type better than you write? Consider typing in a document and save your entries. You can write paragraphs for 30 minutes or purge words and phrases in less than five. Your conversation to your paper or doc can benefit your mental health today and every day. Give it a go and whatever level you are comfortable. If you feel like you have been a bad person lately, maybe it's time to let go of those behaviors and discover yourself again through journaling.

Writing Wednesday: Character Development

 

Character development can be a fun activity for those who love to create a story. Some of the best novels are memorable because of the main and even secondary characters that voice their thoughts and opinions. What is the author thinking when they develop unique individuals unlike themselves?

A little creativity can be sparked by a number of things. Sometimes it comes from people you know, but that gets into tricky business. Who wants to find out that their quirks and idiosyncrasies are in print for the world to see? There is a way to develop fictional characters and actually keeping them fictional.

Writing Exercise:

Think about the first time you saw someone. You took in their traits, demeanor, and behaviors and make your own assumption of them. Sometimes these impressions are heightened and quite absurd. Only when you get to know the person do you find out how close or far off your judgement was. 

Take the first impression of someone you observed or met. It can be as true or wild as you can dream up. Do you want them to stand out or be relatable to most readers? When you struggle to find someone unique, your first impressions may lead the way to an awesome character.

The following is a variation of a first impression. 

He thought he was the son of Satchmo. You could tell by the way he puffs up his cheeks blowing, leaning far, far back to take in all of the air possible and not sharing with the other brass players. It takes balls to gyrate with all of that confidence in the middle of a song. In the entire high school band, you can easily pick him out as the fool in the back dancing and grooving to the music whether it was John Phillip Sousa or Johann Sebastian Bach. He knew he was good, but was he?

Writing Wednesday: Poetry Part 3

 Writing Wednesday: Poetry Month part 3

Tanka

In keeping with my love for brief, my last poem of focus for Poetry Month is the tanka. This Japanese poem structure has 31 syllables and means “short song”. Think of it as a combination of a haiku and couplet because:

🇯🇵 line 1 has 5 syllables

🇯🇵 line 2 has 7 syllables 

🇯🇵 line 3 has 5 syllables (so far just like haiku!)

🇯🇵 line 4 has 7 syllables 

🇯🇵 line 5 has 7 syllables

Traditionally the entire poem flowed in one line, but don’t let the fear of a run-on sentence deter you from creating this poetic form. Just like haiku, it can be about nature. Just like a couplet, you can add rhyme and rhythm. 

Writing Task

Take the time to draft a tanka poem. It is a short verse that can help you play with word choice or analyze a part of nature or theme. 

When the tulips bloom,

I take a pause to reflect 

On its erect stem,

Vibrant shades of yellow and 

Red that inspire this verse.

Writing Wednesday: Poetry Part 2

 

Writing Wednesday: Poetry Part 2

Continuing with the theme of poetry, this Wednesday is focusing on the couplet.

From the elementary perspective, poems are lines that rhyme, typically in an AB pattern. However, two lines are so simple to rhyme because you can just get it over with right away. 

Is today the day

To come over to play?

(You can get a child rhyming every sentence said with that, so be careful what you start.)

If you love playing with rhyme or want to start small and build stanzas like blocks, look to a couplet.

Couplets are another great brief form of poetry, recognizable with its two lines. After that, there is some flexibility in the form. 

• Most couplets rhyme, but not required. 

• A couplet can be closed (ending with punctuation) or open and carrying into another couplet or verse

• Couplets can stand alone, or they can be stanzas in a longer poem.

• Traditionally it has a rhythm such as iambic pentameter, but there are also free form couplets.

Writing Task

The great thing about writing couplets is that you can take as little or as much time creating one. Your creativity can go as far as you want to take it. I actually found inspiration searching for rhymes on websites like RhymeZone.com. Challenge your word choice, grammar structure, and even rhythm with a couplet. In my example below, I felt that my first couplet could easily stand alone, but just like the lines in this form of poetry, it needed another stanza to make a pair.

A simple, yet worthy poem of spring;

A couplet that rhymes and ends with zing.

Cheeky and brief, like a smile passing by

Not long or drawn out; a blink of an eye.

Feel free to share any of your couplets in the comments below.

Writing Wednesday: Poetry

 

In this new series Writing Wednesday, I want to address different ways to express yourself in a variety of written forms. It may feel like school, but that was when some parts of writing were easy and fun. And if writing wasn't fun for you back then, maybe a fresh start will help you take another look at it. 

School notebooks were my favorite writing medium. From passing notes to jotting down inspirations, there were always notebooks close to me. I still use them from time to time, and there is often a treasure to find in any spiral notebook around my house. 

Most of the notebooks held poetry. There is something about words full of imagery and lyrics that express my thoughts. Even better, poetry is often brief. I love brief. Sometimes it is hard to tell a whole story when all you want to do is freeze a moment in time or encapsulate an object for further study. 

One of my favorite lessons I recall from student teaching was poetry writing during April for Poetry Month. Before we worked on our own poems, I would read aloud to the second graders from some of the greats like Jack Prelutsky or Shel Silverstein because they made poetry fun. Later I discovered Brod Bagert. Look up Giant Children and see if you can find "Booger Love". Yes, an ode to snot. 

While many poetry is seen as schmaltzy and rhyming, some forget that there are other forms. There are numerous forms and structures of poetry. Haiku is the epitome of brief to me with the challenge of lines and syllables. But there are others that are even simpler than that.

Acrostic Poetry

What could be more simple than taking a word and writing a word for each letter? Primary students describe themselves with their name:

Red

Apple

Cards

Happy

Elephant

Laughs

What else can be said about RACHEL other than she likes the color red, eating apples, playing cards, and is a happy person who likes elephants and laughing? Or what about a more witty version such as:

Ravishing

Adorable

Charismatic

Humble

Effervescent

Lunatic

Everything changes with the right vocabulary.

Writing Task

Each Wednesday it is a good time to take a few minutes to channel your creativity in writing. It will be brief and fun. Make your own acrostic using a word of your choosing. All you need is one word for this exercise, but you can always expand to phrases too. Here is my writing example for your reading pleasure.

See if you can find the message

Embedded in my unrhymed verse

Created in fun

Rather than laborious, lengthy structure;

Every word thoughtfully placed

To create an acrostic poem

Feel free to share your acrostic poetry results in the comments below.

For the Love of Picture Books

If there is something that can bring nostalgia, it is a picture book. For me, I spent a lot of time at the public library as a child. The librarian in the basement where they kept the juvenile books knew my sisters and me well. Eventually we all volunteered our time there helping with summer programs and reading, reading, reading.

Picture books are memorable for their text as well as their illustrations and photos. Some of the classics are still on shelves and in stores for the next generation. They are inspiration or the basis of parodies. Author and illustrator names are well learned because that is how you find them. If you don't know their name, how do you find them in a library? Then again, emerging readers find them by landmarks. They know that shelf well and will find them again and again. They will flip through the pages of words they have yet to learn how to read for themselves, then wait for someone, anyone, to read the story that unlocks the meaning of the pictures.

A good picture book is one that is repeated over and over. Did you read a certain book until the spine cracked and the pages started to fall out? That is not a sign of abuse; it is use. They are held on with love and comfort, like a baby blanket or stuffed animal. 

In any language, at any age, there is a children's picture book that makes a difference. It is the read-aloud with a parent, the artwork that inspires a budding artist, or a masterpiece of creative writing that sparks the writer for the next generation.

I was a writer early on, and my illustrations were more drafts than artwork. My 2D characters had the most U-shaped faces and pigeon toes. I think I wanted to be a teacher more than anything because I wanted to continue being so close to children's books. Reading conferences were like meet-and-greets with celebrities because they are my celebrities. Mo Willems, Tomie dePaola, these guys were authors and illustrators that created something wonderful that I could share over and over again with my children and my other children - my students.

Once I left teaching, I still wanted that connection to children's books. Through one of my freelance assignments, I became acquainted with Smart Kidz Club. This digital book library brings original picture books to children with read-alouds and informational books perfect for classroom reports. I found my niche with a book series on Landmarks of the United States. My character is Patriot, the bald eagle tour guide to flies across the country and takes readers to real places of history, nature, and wonder. 

Today is Children's Picture Book Day. You can read to your children and share your favorite picture book. Or even better, let your child select the book they love the most. Make it a vote, make a bracket like in sports to have the best of the best go head to head. Illustrate favorite characters. For example, Mo Willems has step by step videos on YouTube on how to draw Pigeon and other beloved characters.

For voracious readers who can't get enough or young readers who love your device, I have the opportunity for you to access even more children's books. Check out Smart Kidz Club or download the app on iTunes or Google Play. New visitors start with a free 7-day trial to look through the vast library of books that are original and unique. All topics, all genres, all perfect for babies to 5th grade reading levels. If you like it, subscribe so that you can keep your access for either a monthly basis or annual basis. 

I am a Literacy Ambassador for Smart Kidz Club, and proud of it. Not only am I happy to publish my own books with the publication, but I love the other books that promote the advancement of early literacy and childhood reading skills with interesting topics and engaging quizzes and activities. I want to share more of Smart Kidz Club with you. When you subscribe to this digital library using the promo word PICTURE, your subscription will be discounted 10%. Cancel at any time, but I feel that your child will find more and more great books that you will go beyond the free trial period. Click here to learn more about bringing books to your child, especially in time for Children's Picture Book Day.

 

Motivators

 

I was required to take three psychology courses in college in order to be a teacher: intro, ed psych, and adolescent psych. I don't remember much of the lessons, though, just like with any good course, you remember something that may not necessarily be directly connected to the curriculum.

In my ed psych class, however, I recall a professor applicant who  came in to present a lesson as part of her interview. Her approach was more interesting than our professor's, and that may be why the topic still comes back to me. It was on motivation to learn. Using an overhead projector and a number of strips from the Peanuts cartoon, she demonstrated a child's motivation to learn and absorb lessons. 

Intrinsic motivation is the drive that a person has inside of them to learn. Think about your favorite subject, topic, hobby, skill. These are the things that people want to learn about so much that they are willing to read up on the topics, collect the tools in order to have hands-on experience, self-teach an instrument or game, or seek out experts and mentors who can teach them more about it.

Extrinsic motivation are more of the "hooks" and "carrots" that get people to do things. Stickers, cash, praise, or some kind of reward. Sometimes these motivators are good to introduce students to a new topic that may seem boring, scary, or "lame", but often they are used to push others to finish projects and tasks.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are not just for students. Adults have them in the workplace (personal satisfaction in success, perks, bonuses, mentions at meetings, promotions). The self-employed, however, often have to find more motivators. This may be challenging if they are not as creative as corporate HR teams with bigger budgets. Something has to help people make an income, complete tasks, or achieve milestones.

The weather has been cold and gloomy, and sometimes people just want to hibernate and carb load. Or, in terms of major winter weather, power outages keep remote workers from completing assignments. The same is true for warmer weather that lures people outdoors to soak up that vitamin D and fresh air.

Motivation is key to success in all areas of work and play. How do writers stay motivated, especially in the beginning? There are goals that drive them each step of the way - finishing a draft, submitting a piece for publication, seeing a name in print or online. Payment for creative works is also motivating, as is fame and recognition.

A small percentage of writers will be the next Danielle Steele, Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, and those writing icons may motivate them to achieve big. However, motivation can be just penning a memoir for family members in order to pass down ancestral stories or self-publishing a child's favorite bedtime tale. 

When your current work is stale and bringing you down, it is good to review goals. Motivation and milestones are important to achieving those goals. How you motivate yourself is up to you, whether it is the intrinsic motivation to achieve or the extrinsic motivators that push  you past hurdles.

Backyard Stories

 My grandfather's birthday is next week. He passed away about 25 years ago, but he certainly made an impact on my life. The time I spent with him contributed to a lot of my own storytelling. But stories have a way of weaving in and out of other stories. 

Grandpa always told stories over and over again. It may have been a memory thing, but these were shared to bring out laughter and happy times. He also enjoyed hearing his favorite stories over and over again. After church on Sundays, my 16-year old self was in charge tidying up and reading a passage from whatever book he picked. Often it was the first two pages of my uncle's book of short stories. 

It was a beautifully bound book of his writings that he published while in college. The dedication page spoke fondly of his parents, but the lead-off story in the book was about the childhood home. It was called "Sticker Bush for Base". It described the backyard of the home where all of the neighborhood children came to play ball. It can be a universal topic for children growing up in the 20th century full of leisure and memories. I never did get past that first story, but it has stuck with me even after all this time.

As I think about my Sundays with my grandfather, I also think about my own stories to tell from my backyard. There weren't many girls in our neighborhood, so we were often playing games with the boys in the neighborhood or riding our bikes from street to street. It is greatly different from the upbringing of my children who have their own version of backyard stories to tell. 

That being said, I started a new project about backyard stories. With a nod to my uncle, my first story is currently titled "Dirt Patch". There will always be one part of the yard that sums up a memory. The kids in my neighborhood can probably envision my reference point. I'm sure you are imagining your own special spot. These creative moments take nothing more than the time to reflect on memories and share them with the readers with storytelling flair.

January

 January

January seems to be full of winter drama. I can recall blizzards and other snow storms at the beginning of the year. My children can remember what a “polar vortex” is, especially when it kept them from going to school.

January is also marked by my dad’s passing 24 years ago. I was on Winter break during my senior year of college with sparkling dreams and aspirations. Ok, I don’t sparkle, but you can imagine the naive outlook of one who can have their whole life on track believing they understand what adulthood is really like. Just like subzero cold, it smacked me hard and made me numb. Time moved slowly and I had to struggle to not be frozen in that moment. Even though I was able to go through the motions of student teaching and graduation, it took me a long time to thaw out.

I see 2021 as a time to heal from the pandemic. There is so much mental health that needs to be strengthened or those who have been isolated, ill, or traumatized by loss. We have to weather a few more storms to get to that point, just like we have in the past and how we will in the future.

The KWL of 2020

KWL, for those who don’t remember it from their elementary school days, stands for

• K - What I Know

• W - What I Want to Know

• L - What I Have Learned

I haven't thought about KWLs and other teaching tools for a while, but the pandemic and the association of bad luck with the year 2020 makes me want to reflect as the year comes to an end. 

What I Know about 2020

What I know is that I came into the new year of 2020 with high hopes and expectations. I was looking forward to concerts like with Gone West in Chicago, trips with family on Spring Break and even the summer, visits to see family including one of my sister’s first visit to her childhood home in years. The greatest milestone was my son’s graduation from high school. After 13 years of schooling, nothing was going to hold him back.

What happened was everything started off well enough. Then the news of a virus spreading became more of a reality. We were washing hands and standing in lines for toilet paper. It wasn’t going to come to our small town, it wasn’t going to affect my family, it was going to stop before it got as bad as it did in China.

But it didn’t.

What I Want to Know About 2020

In some ways, I don’t want to think about this year, but it is going to be a part of our lives just like the polio epidemic was for my mother and the Great Depression was for my grandmother. What do I want to know? What are we doing to make sure that we don’t have to deal with this again? Will there be better protocol so that pandemics don’t spread to epic proportions? What kind of mental issues will come out of this and are we prepared for long term effects?

Did we learn anything?

What I Learned about 2020

I learned about perseverance. 

I learned about the importance of a core group of support like my best friends who check in to vent or to comfort. 

I learned that I touch my face way too much. 

I learned that remote learning is not the best for everyone, but it can help students in a bind.

I learned that we have technology that connects us in ways that aided many people whether it is communication, shopping, or entertainment. 

I learned that a community truly needs each other in order to endure.

I learned that I have less patience than I am given credit for.

I learned about the pain of systemic racism when I looked into the eyes of a young black woman who felt the weight of the world on her shoulders and lashed out to a person she didn’t know, calling them a racist. If there is anything I learned, it is that everyone reacts to race in different ways. Some will find strength in their experience and see it as their weakness. What does it take to change? It is not the same for everyone, just like it is not the same based on gender, ethnic background, socio-economic upbringing, or any other category of people. That being said, my eyes are open wider than last year, but I can’t see any solution just yet.

So yes, we survived 2020. I’m not setting high hopes for 2021 just yet because it may just be a year that I can show off my new collection of face masks. Whatever the next year brings, I hope we can continue to share it together, even with some distance apart. 

Do You Remember Me?

Photo by Paola Chaaya on Unsplash

Many years ago, I was leaving school where I worked when two teenage boys approached me by my car. One of them said, “Do you remember me?”

It was a small town that I did not live in, so if there was a student in that town, I knew them. Not to mention that the school where I taught was a K-8 school of 150 so you watched all of the students grow from tooth-gap wonders to awkward tweens. As he and his friend stood in front of me, I knew right away who it was.

Now, mind you, I could have said, “Dude, I would need amnesia to be able to forget you!” or “Nope, don’t recall.” Instead, I said, “Of course. You are on my Top 10 List of Unforgettable Students.”

He seemed stunned to be in that high of an honor, but there was something that did not seem to make that “honor” worthy of awe and esteem.  “I am?” he asked.

His friend, who I also remember from that class chimed in. “Is that because of the stunt he pulled in third grade?”

While his friend blushed, I agreed to that and a number of other things.  (To protect the innocent, I will not divulge his unique act that NO ONE in that classroom will forget. No one was injured, but I will say that instruction time was postponed for at least thirty minutes and an apology was necessary.)

Teachers cross paths with hundreds and thousands of students in their career life. There are those who you aspired to have your own children become and those whose names will never be considered for birth certificates no matter how common that name may be. Some of the stories about students never go beyond the teacher’s lounge for the day while others stay with you for the rest of your life.

This particular student makes the Top 10 for “The Incident”, but because I wanted him to succeed just as much as his peers. He was not a strong reader, but he had an interest of books. I was a reading coordinator at the time we met and I tried to have a variety of books for all ages and interests in my room. He had a fondness for joke books and the small school library couldn’t keep up with it. He would come into my room and asked to borrow a book. As with all of the students who would borrow my personal books, I would make them take an oath. They had to promise, with a hand on the book cover, that they would never do anything to damage the book on purpose or else they would be hung by the ceiling fan by their toenails. Once they got the giggle out of their system, they were off to enjoy the book.

His fondness for humor made him a perfect choice for The Day My Butt Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths. He would borrow it over and over again and I never discouraged it. One day he came to my room looking a bit scared. There was a tear on the back cover covered with a piece of transparent tape. As he rambled about how he dropped it and he tried to catch it and it just happened, I thanked him. He was confused. I explained that he showed great maturity in taking care of the problem and then to tell me what happened even though he took an oath. (Please, to think I can take a squirmy child over my head to attach to a ceiling fan PLUS find a way to attach their toenails to it? Why do you think I chose that oath?)

I gifted him that book. I don’t know much about his family background, but we were a low-income school. Not everyone invested in books for their homes when there were other financial concerns like mortgages, rent, utilities, and food. That day, he looked like it was the greatest gift in the world to him.

So yes, he made my Top 10 for many reasons, not just a bad decision made on the day I happened to be in his classroom. He joins a second-grade, red-headed girl who shocked me while student teaching when she looked over to the fifth grade boys in the hallway and said in her best Lauren Bacall voice, “Hello, boys”. Another member on the list was the fifth grade boy where I was a recess aide who would always come over and greet me to see how I was and to make sure that my boyfriend at the time was treating me nicely and being a gentleman. I asked him one day if he was going to be a lawyer, politician, or salesman. He looked at me with seriousness and maturity and said, “A lawyer, just like my dad.” Recently I saw that he won a local election, so I am proud of him for that too. If I didn’t remember his name and personality, his yard sign would have meant nothing to me.

Maybe not all of my former students make the Top 10, but I still remember many of them. Some of them have reached out and connected with me on social media. It is flattering that they choose to do that. While I have no other contact directly with the schools where I worked, it gives me a chance to get a glimpse in the life I used to know. I can still advise when they ask and they can keep me up to date on some of the other students with good and bad news.

Think about your Top 10 in any category. These people make the stories of our lives. You may have it written down, just like I did above for this student, or you may have it stuck in your head. Hopefully you have been able to let them know how much you appreciate them in their life. I told him that I was proud of how far he had come since grade school and hoped he was doing well in high school. I hope that he and many other students remember me. Maybe I won’t make their Top 10 Teachers, but I hope I made an impact.