A Teacher;s Perspective on the End of the School Year

          Hey everyone. I know I've been MIA for the past month, the end of the school year is a crazy time for us teachers. That coupled with my home computer breaking, makes for no time to blog. So here we are, at the end of the school year. I personally love this time of year, not for my summer vacation (which, by the way I do not get since summer school starts Monday for teachers and July 5th for students, making our "summer vacation a 4 day weekend), but because it is a time to sit back and reflect on the past year. This is a time to see how successful you really are as a teacher, and a time to look back and see where you need to improve for next year. During the last couple of weeks of the school year, I love to look back on where my students were in Spetember and where they are now. It is especially rewarding when I look at the students whom other teachers "warned" me about and see how far they have come. out of my 6 students, 3 were unable to read in September. Today one is reading around 30 words, while the other two are reading close to 100 words, and some stories. I have 5 students doing simple addition and one who could not speak back in September, who is verbally requesting "pee-pee" pretzels, juice, candy, chips, and more. My students who didn't acknowledge one another in September are now playing together, initiating socialization and even asking each other for things. My favorite part of the end of the year in my school is taking part in so many fun activities and watching my students just be kids. It is there that some of their real progress really comes out. For a lot of my students, the biggest issue is learning how to socialize appropriately. These activities are great ways for us teachers to see how much our students have come in that aspect of their lives, During the year, we are constantly assessing their academic progress, but very rarely, is the focus ever on strict social skills. My heart melted the day of my class's carnival. We had extra popcorn, and M was sitting with the entire bowl in front of him. (M, an only child has been learning this year that he needs to share.) E was on the computer as we were getting ready to go home and turns around and says "Popcorn please." M turns around and gives E a few pieces of popcorn and E goes back to the computer. A few seconds later, E asks again for popcorn, and the cycle goes on for about five minutes, E asking and M giving him about 3 pieces of popcorn each time. E had the biggest smile on his face each time M would turn around to give him popcorn. The first couple of times I saw this interaction, I was tempted to step in and give E a napkin full of popcorn, since M was only giving up 3 pieces at a time, but seeing how much the two of them enjoyed the exchange I stayed out of it and just enjoyed the progress both boys have shown. M, in the beginning of the year never liked to share anything he considered to be his, this included classroom toys and items that he especially liked. He would hide his favorite books and toys throughout the room so that no one else would get them before him and so he would be the only one who knew where they were. When we would make him share, even if it was just taking a small piece of the putty he liked to give to another student, he would flip out. We worked really hard to teach him that the things in school are not his and that he needs to share with his friends, but as all things go, some days were much harder than others, and even the easy days required a reminder to share. E always looked to interact with his classmates, but had a hard time focusing long enough to engage anyone. He required prompting to initiate the interaction, and even more so to keep it going. By May he would sit at the kidney table and say hi to various classmates, and a few of them would respond back and he would get so excited. To see that E independently asked for the popcorn from M and M independently shared with him, was a huge step for the two of them. That little moment made all of the fighting and tantrums from M, and all of the pushing of E to keep going and chasing his friends so worth it. Even though we go right back into the swing of things July 5th, it feels good to cap off the year celebrating my students' accomplishments, and planning for next years activities. I am fortunate enough to be keeping 4 of my same students next September, so I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go with them, it is good to reflect on where they are now as opposed to where they were in September, and now for 4 of them I am finalizing my plans on where I want them to be this time next year. This year has been full of pleasant surprises from my students, from J starting to speak, to Mo spontaneously spelling out words, to C going from having a tough time progressing in his ABA programs to speeding through his reading, adding, and personal info, I couldn't be any happier with how far we have all come. I have learned so much from my students this year and can only hope that they have learned half as much from me as I have from them. I am looking forward to my final hurrah with my superstars this summer, and will miss my other two who are moving on to different classrooms dearly, but I will never stop advocating for them and making sure their new teachers know how amazing they really are, despite what other teachers may say.