RefinED Friends,
So there I was just last week, co-facilitating
resiliency training for a group of fourth graders. I glanced across the
gymnasium and noticed a familiar face. My third grade teacher!
When I reached 99% certainty it was her, I
called her name. She eventually put two-and-two together who I was, and we
caught up for a few minutes during a break in the action. Needless to say, we
both felt old in our own ways.
Part of feeling old is reminiscing, so today I
dug my 3rd grade yearbook from the attic vault. Here are some observations:
- 21
students in my class that year (most teachers now would kill for a class
that small)
- Bangs
were in! (at least for the girls)
- Stripes
were also in. Boys and girls were throwing horizontal and vertical stripes
all over the page. Even the teacher had on stripes!
- I
am awkwardly placed in the center of my class page, collared shirt
completely buttoned up and hair tussled
- Remember
the side ponytail from Napoleon Dynamite? Yeah, one girl in my class rocking
that.
- There
is one photo of a female classmate (who will remain nameless) next to
which I scribed, “She’s cute” with an arrow. This same student’s
signature, on the front page, is conspicuously circled in the same color
pen with which I wrote, “She’s cute.”
- On
a previous page, not in my handwriting, someone scribed “Josh loves
Rachel” with an arrow pointing to Rachel (I’m guessing the handwriting is
Josh’s)
- So
many of "us" look like students I have taught in my own
classroom
- My
teacher was the only one to include a smiley face (the 80's emoticon) with
her signature
Some of those faces from that class I still see
via Facebook. Some have faded away from my circles. What links us all
back together, though, is our teacher that year. A teacher still changing the
lives of young men and women. Thanks, Mrs. K.!
~Scott
scott@refinedcharacter.com
