Differences

I am starting to reflect on the experience I've had with this summer program, and I have to say, it's been a great one. I can't help but compare it to what I have now named my "hellish long-term sub job". The differences have been incredible. One big difference is that with the summer program, I am not counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until we're done. In fact, I'm going to be a little sad on the last day when I say goodbye to my kids.

First of all, I have had a class size of about 7 kids, give or take 2-3 on any given day. Out of these 7, I have had only one challenging boy, who I had in my class as a student teacher. In fact, all of the kids I knew from my student teaching days, either in Linda's class or Matt's class. It was easy, then, to re-establish ground rules for behavior. Classroom management was a breeze.

I had to pinch myself numerous times throughout the program. Sometimes the kids were engaged in an activity for almost an hour straight, and actually asked, no begged, to do learning activities. This is unheard of in teaching. Despite the rapid pace I had to teach with trying to cram everything in, I was definitely spoiled this summer.

But you know what? It felt good. I believe in things like, "Good things come to those who wait", or, "It all comes out in the wash", or, "If you do something good, it will usually come back to you". A karma of sorts, I guess. And then I think back to that "hellish long-term sub job" and I think, yes, this is definitely a karma of sorts.