~ today these ppl from my school board and my vice-principal came and walked around my classroom to see what i was teaching.  They talked to my students and asked them what they're learning and how they're doing in my class.  Before they left, one of them came up to me and said I was doing a wonderful job with the students.  And today when i went to photocopy, another staff said to me "too bad you can't stay b/c I know you are doing wonderful things with your kids..."  After hearing these words, I felt so joyful and appreciated.  I know I can do better but at least someone notices the effort and time I put into my class!!!!! I can't wait til I've taught for several years..I'll be so much better and doing such fun things with my kids!...  I slowly see the value and joy of this profession.  I love my job!

ACM singing tomorrow...I'm very excited because it is going to be so awesome!

~ I sat down after my class and took a deep long breath.....i'm so tired and stressed to a point, i want to drop everything and call it quits...being a new teacher is so hard...i feel like an entertainer..always having to put a smile on and impressing the kids with new lessons and games...i'm tired of smiling, tired of pretending to be excited, tired of marking, tired of planning, tired of being creative, tired of getting everyone's attention, tired of dealing with complaints, tired of repeating the same information over and over again.....this is not easy

~ today an amazing speaker came to give us a talk about parents relationship..she told us a story about what happened in her class, and I was truly inspired by her story..teaching is such a meaningful profession :)

she told us that in her class she would give "sunshine calls" to parents when her students did something amazing in class...during one of her classes, some kids were surrounding a spider and yelled "let's rip off its legs to see if it has 8 legs"...she heard the kids yelling but she didn't approach them immediately because she was busy reading with a child...one of teh students in her class came up to her and asked her to stop them  to save the spider...the little kid picked up a piece of construction paper and let the spider crawl on it and went outside to free the spider...she felt so touched by the child's courage to stand up against other students, she gave the kid's dad a sunshine call to praise his child, and to ask him to give his child a hug in the morning...The next day, the child ran excitedly in the classroom and told her that his dad woke him up the middle of the night and had ice-cream with him, and read a spider book together.  He was really happy about it and insisted that she should call his parents every night.  Three days later, the principal asked the teacher to come in the office, and told her that this child's dad passed away last ight.  The next day, the child's mom gave her a sunshine call and thanked her for calling them before his dad passed away...his son's last memory of his dad was sharing ice-cream and reading a book together...

when i heard her story, i wanted to cry...just little subtle things you do can make such a big difference in a child's life