Happenings at the Peaks

Life update: Student teaching in 1st grade at Provo Peaks.

Little boy in my class, we'll call him Andy, melts my heart.  He is the absolute cutest and has THE biggest imagination.  In a writing assignment, they were supposed to write about if they could go anywhere in the world, where they would go.  Most of my students wrote the zoo or home which was really sweet and poetic in and of itself, but Andy's was unlike any of their's.

"Miss Martin, can I tell you where I would go if I could go anywhere?" (He's so excited he's bouncing up and down on his tiptoes and waving his hands)

"Where Andy?"

"A CEMETERY!"

"A cemetery? What?!"

"Yeah! I want to live in my GRAVE!"

......................................

He even drew his grave with his initials on it and drew himself as a ghost flying around it.  

I LOVE these funny moments.  Love them.  But to be honest, teaching 1st grade has been hard, so hard.  I did one lesson that just bombed (in the bad way).  I didn't cry in front of the students, but during that lesson it took everything in me to keep it together. Afterwards I was lining the kids up for recess, and one girl came up to me and said, "Teacher, I love you."  My heart felt like it was overflowing.  

Little kids are SO sweet, SO pure.  Even though this has not been the easiest class to learn in, I have learned so much what it means to become like a little child.  They are so forgiving of me, so patient. Despite all the tattling, the crying, the not-keeping-their-hands-to-themselves, they can be some of the kindest, thoughtful, and sweetest people I have ever met.  These kids come from unimaginably hard backgrounds, and sometimes when I look about them or think about them I have such a heavy heart.  But then I remember that this is why I decided to teach.  Not to just teach them the A-B-C's, or how to count, or who the eighteenth president is.  But to make a difference.