Year 3 starts tomorrow…

Why did I sign up for a 3rd year?

I have been asking myself this question a lot these last two weeks (because as you know, even though the first day of school isn’t until tomorrow, it took over 2 weeks of unpaid work to get ready for it). I’m already tired, super-stressed, and EXTREMELY overwhelmed. Is it June yet?

But seriously, even with the jarring sensation that the abrupt halt of summer and intense rush of the start of school brings, I was reminded this week why I am here again, even after I successfully fulfilled my 2-year contract. The kids.

Tuesday was open house at my school. Since I am moving up a grade, I knew all these kids from last year, even if I didn’t teach them, I know their names and/or their faces. I was immediately reminded of why I love these kids, and maybe don’t love the teaching part, but love the mentoring and relational part of my job. As my students from last came in and were either super excited to have me again, sad to have been put in another math teachers class instead of mine, or even older kids that I taught 2 years ago (and have since moved on to high school) were with their younger siblings and still stopping by to say hey to “C-Beza”, I remembered how much I care about them. Hearing their deeper voices and looking just a little bit more “up” at them because they have grown up over the summer is like getting to watch younger siblings or cousins grow up. I was greeted by several of the ones that I have mentioned in this blog before like an old family friend. I know this year will be a challenge just like the last two, but I’m excited about experiencing a 2nd year with a lot of the same kids and getting to see them develop more and grow even more intertwined with their adolescent lives.

Here are a few pictures of my room this year (Room 809) as it has been set up so far…

The back wall of my room. Basically the same setup with a few tweaks. This is where their data tracking will go, along with student work!

Behind my desk. Obviously it's got UGA stuff, and also you might notice those painted wood carvings from last year! 🙂

Front of the room. Mostly the same setup as years past. One thing you'll notice is NO SMARTBOARD! However, I will be getting one in like 4-6 weeks.

Information section. Definitely stepped this section of my room up from before. This has unit information, a list of assignments, calendar, birthdays, absent work, etc. Very functional right there!

A closer look at the data tracking wall, complete with a chart to track mastery on standards, a place for pre-test and post-test class averages, a Top 5 board, and a chart to make a bar graph of growth through the year. I want my kids to be very knowledgable about their learning!

Movin’ On Up

Year 3. 8th Grade. Algebra.

Stay tuned for more details and pictures but for now I’ll leave you with this…

My new room number!

El verano.

So my second summer is drawing to a close. This summer, much like the last, was a great way to relax, catch up on much needed sleep, and basically remember was it is like to be a human being. However, also like last summer, I found myself bored. I’ve come to the conclusion that as long as I continue to teach, I need to get a job over the summer to keep myself busy!

Now, even though I just got done saying that I had bouts of boredom this summer, I need to go on a little rant about how much of my summer I didn’t actually HAVE. Teachers are seen as being these people who “have it easy” by certain parts of the population. “You get off at 3”, “You get breaks for holidays and 2 weeks at Christmas”, and of course, “You have summers off”. First of all, anyone who wants to check with my boss and see how many times I left the building at 3 pm on a school day any of the 360 days that I have taught will come back with a major GOOSE EGG! Secondly, if what I have provided in this blog over the last two years, and what practically any teacher will attest to if you even slightly bring up a work conversation with one, teachers work enough during the 10 months of the school year to make up for all this “off” time that we supposedly have. So let me break it down for you in numbers (I am a math teacher after all!)…

Average American’s hours: 40 hrs/wk, 50 wks/yr = 2000 hrs/yr

My hours: (estimated, to include at school and home): 75 hrs/wk, 36 wks/yr = 2700

(and I PROMISE that’s an underestimate)

Summer: 10 weeks (not 3 months as is typically assumed)

• Number of business days in 10 weeks: 50
• Number of “official” workdays: 7
• Number of “unofficial” workdays: 5
• Number of “workshops” (**unpaid**): 9
• Total number of days ACTUALLY off, based on that count: 29…or just less than 6 weeks

Now, let me say that this is not to complain, because I love my job, otherwise I would’ve left it after my TFA commitment to go do more “prestigious” things and make way more money. However, it does bother me that the section of America that doesn’t have the privilege of having a successful, effective teacher in the family honestly believes that teachers have it so easy and might actually be getting paid what they deserve. Oh contraire, mon cheri!

But now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, here are a few pictures from what I did this summer…

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Overall, I have enjoyed the summer, but I’m honestly ready to get back to work. I miss the kids and the feeling of purpose. Stay tuned for news about year 3!

Thoughtful

Our students who take Art class always do a carving project where they carve a picture in a block of wood and then get a chance to paint it and gloss it over. They spend weeks on this project. This year, two students decided that they wanted to GIVE me their projects. I asked if they didn’t want to take them home and keep them or give them to their parents, but no, they wanted ME to have them. The first one was from none other than DF. He is obsessed with Abercrombie, so he did the Abercrombie moose. The coolest part of it was that he had our entire 3rd block sign the back of it…on his own! Then, a girl in my first block DW, decided she wanted to give me hers. When she handed it to me, she said, “since I thought about you when I made it, I wanted you to have it.” Considering that it’s a half-naked white guy with a six-pack and in a Hollister bathing suit, I’m not sure how to feel about this. HAHA! However, this particular student has already declared herself a lesbian, so I wasn’t too freaked out.


Needless to say, I was very touched by their generousity and thoughtfulness. These types of mementos are the ones that I will keep forever.

Survey Questions

So here it is folks, the same survey I gave my students last year. As to not overwhelm you, I am only going to include the really great, funny, interesting, or honestly blunt comments that I received.

Question 1: I would recommend a friend to take Mr. Cabeza’s math class because…

• …he teaches well and he is probably the nicest teacher in the 7th grade if you don’t get on his nerves. (haha)
• …his teaching is off the chain.
• …he is a really good teacher and anyone would be lucky to have Mr. Cabeza as a math teacher or any other subject.
• …well to tell you the truth I don’t really want a replacement for Mr. Cabeza because he is a really great person and teacher!
• …he is a creative, fun, and good teacher because some people that were bad actually made high growth on the EOG.
• …sometimes this is the funnest class and we still do work.
• …he’s always serious about his work and he always wants you to succeed.
• …he is a fun, opinionated, laughable, short man and a great “lil” math teacher. -CJ (who is shorter than me!)
• …he is a great teacher and he is very smart. He has helped me produce a lot of growth (4 years worth) and he can form a good relationship with his fellow students. Trust me. -SH (her comments were some of my favs)

Question 2: Please describe what you think are the qualities of an excellent teacher.

• “Can teach like crazy, has high expectations (both comments pointing arrows to “Mr. Cabeza”) – SH

Question 3: Does Mr. Cabeza have any of those qualities?

• “Yes, when we act up he might jack us up if needed; we learn a lot but in a good way; he gives us speeches to help us be thankful; and he’s our teacher” – SH
• “He is very determined because even though we cause him problems he comes here everyday to teach us.”
• “He fits my qualities by everything because he’s good at everything.” (I have these kids brainwashed! ha)

Question 4: How should Mr. Cabeza change to better meet your needs?

**Most students wrote something like “doesn’t need to change anything” or “be more fun”. The most common response though was something about “stop yelling so much”, “stop flipping out”, “don’t make a big deal about everything”. There were two responses though that stuck out to me:

• “Mr. Cabeza needs to change his attitude. He needs to have more patience with children.” (I respect her honesty, and she is actually a JOY to teach, so I think this was probably frustration with her classmates.)
• “He doesn’t need to change but what he needs is some rest.” (TRUTH TRUTH TRUTH! This is a wise kid!!!)

Question 5: I’ll never forget when we…

• …had such a great time this year in all that you did for us.
• …how we’ll get Mr. Cabeza mad and turn him steam red and he gets to the point where he wants to curse but spits and yells all over. (from the same kid that wrote that journal entry in the last post…)
• …all took pictures for Nerd Day (featured in a post last fall!)
• …beat up DF from his tickle spot on his sides. (this was terribly fun indeed!)
• …went outside to the black top and Mr. Cabeza flamed DG. (“flaming” is like dissing. haha)
• …had stayed after school and went skating. LOLZ Cabeza can’t skate! (***See below: I have posted this picture previously, but this is how CJ edited the picture and posted it on Facebook):

Question 6: Most of the time Mr. Cabeza made me feel…

• …good that I can pass math, go to college, and be the person I want to be.
• …in a weird way, he always made me feel smart.
• …kinda hard on myself because he gave me a lot of courage and I took the courage and did my best.
• …like a winner.
• …proud of myself.
• …sometimes scared. (haha)

And my two favorites:

• …sometimes special; sometimes like a dad when I needed it; it was memorable. – SH
• …like I’m somebody, a person. – IW (the repeater who got his first Level III in math this year!)

Question 7: I know Mr. Cabeza cares about me as a person when he…

• …tells me about my growth and potential.
• …when he tells me I’m better than what I show out to be and I have a lot of potential.
• …tells me how I am a good role model for DF. (this was DF’s best friend who grew 15 points this year!)
• …took me home from a basketball game.
• …acts like I haven’t recently done something wrong.
• …lectures about how important education is.
• …let me back in his class after I was so rude towards him.
• …shows up every single day, smiling at the door welcoming us.

Best Journal Entry EVER

This made my day. I found a random notebook/journal sitting by itself in the gym one day and decided I would attempt to find it’s owner. I opened it up and this is what I saw on the first page. You need to know that this is one of my students that I have had all year. He got the LOWEST EOG score possible in 6th grade, was caught smoking weed in the bathroom, would regularly be seen in my room staring at the wall or the floor or his own hand. Somehow, he grew 11 points and went from a Level I to a Level II.

I never thought I was his favorite teacher by any means – and I definitely wouldn’t have listed these qualities as the top reasons. But either way, I’m flattered.

My favorite part: “no homo” (that’s what they say when they want to say nice things to other dudes…haha)

End of Year Celebrations and Photos

Based on the previous post, you can see that my students did AWESOME on their tests. They worked their butts off this year, and it paid off. Thanks to an anonymous contributor, I was able to reward all 3 of my classes, as well as show special recognition to those that work especially hard this year.

1st block got Chick-fil-A breakfast and 3rd/4th blocks got pizza parties!

All students that grew 8+ points (2+ years of growth and hitting, or almost hitting, our Big Goal) received a certificate for “high growth” and a pack of Stride gum (because they made strides in their education…I know I’m cheesy!)

All students who earned a Level IV received a “high achiever” certificate and a pack of Starbursts (cause they’re stars! ha)

In each class, the student with the highest EOG score and largest amount of growth received a trophy!

 

Below, along with pictures from the celebrations, I have included pictures of some of my favorite, uh hmm, students that I have mentioned various times on here…

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Long Awaited EOG Results!!!

Dear readership (aka Mom and Aunt Benita):

I really don’t know why it has taken me so long to get on here and finally blog about the end of the year. I could say it was the necessary “detox” I needed to go through or just because the end of the year was really rough, but regardless, here we go. Stay tuned for an update overload, with EOG results, end of year pictures, student survey responses etc!

To start off, I want to cover the cumbersome, but all important EOG results. As much as we don’t want to say it, this is what measures our success as teachers and the success of our students, quantitatively anyway.

So as a brief reminder, the students take an EOG at the end of the year and get a score back from it. The score in 7th grade math can range from a 332 up to a 382. Then, this scale is broken down into four ranges, known as Levels I, II, III, and IV. If a student’s score is a Level I or II, they are considered to be “below grade level” and have a “failing” score, even though it doesn’t necessarily mean they fail the subject or the grade (and in the type of school I’m in, there are large numbers of students who score in these ranges year after year). Scores in the Level III range are considered “on grade level” and passing, and Level IV would be “above grade level” and also passing. Typically a student needs to receive a Level IV in order to be in Honors classes.

A student is typically expected to grow from year to year, and the state makes a prediction as to what their score will be, basing this prediction off that students’ previous 3 years of testing. When looking at growth, they say that 4 points (on the 332-382 scale) is about a years worth of growth, 8 points is like 2 years, 12 points is like 3 years, and so on. If you remember reading this or this, then you will remember that I set a Big Goal in my class for all students to grow 10 points on their EOG. Obviously, 10 points is a major goal because that’s about 2.5 years of growth in one year. I knew when making this goal that it was going to be too ambitious for some, but if you are striving for something way out there, the distance you grow will still be really great. (What’s that saying…reach for the moon, cause even if you don’t reach it, at least you’ll be among the stars…or something like that.) The reason I set the goal at 10 points is because the “levels” are spaced out by about 10 points. Therefore, growing about 10 points would almost guarantee each student to go from their current “level” to the “next level”.

With that little bit of background, I have tried to organize the many ways to look at all of the data into easily understandable snippets that highlight just how AWESOME the majority of my students did.

***Disclaimer: If you remember, my principal did a major schedule/class roster shake up mid-year which I wrote about here and here. Therefore, I might have ended the year with 90 students, and had taught an addition 15 at some point, but instead of referring to all the students who were with me at certain, limited times, I will only provide the data that is the most valid: the data from the 69 students that were with me ALL year, from start to finish!

1. Pass rate: 81%. That means that 81% or 56 out of 69 passed the test. If you compare this to last year’s 92% pass rate, it looks like a drop, but the difference is the kids that I taught this year. Last year, nearly every single student I taught was supposed to pass, coming to me with Level III’s from the year before. This year, however, I started off with 8 I’s, 12 II’s, 31 III’s, and 18 IV’s. So, considering that  49/69 or 71% passed in 6th grade, this groups pass rate came up TEN percentage points to 56/69 or 81%! And at the end, only one student had a I, 12 had II’s, 28 had III’s, and 27 had IV’s!!!
2. Met Expected: A big thing the school looks at is how many student met their expected score. Even though it would seem that each kid is expected to grow the 4-ish points that represents a year of growth, due to the fact that it is determined by their individual testing over the previous 3 years, some students are expected to grow much more, some around that 4 point area, and others are even expected to go backward. But at the end of it all, the school looks at how many met their expected. With my students, 51 of the 69 met their expected growth. Out of the 18 that didn’t, 9 of them were Honors students, which as I have come to understand, are the students that are the most at risk of not meeting their expected because once you are at the top, you can easily waver from year to year. The other 9 students were from my regular 7th grade classes, and almost ALL of them missed their expected score by 1-2 points!
3. Year to Year Averages: At this point I think it would be better to separate my Honors class out.
   • Honors class: On average, this group of 29 came in with an EOG score of a 365 (high Level III) and finished with an average score of 369 (Level IV), showing as a group, a 4 point increase. This tells me that even though a lot of them were already “above grade level” that they were still able to grow the one year they should have, on average.
   • Regular classes: On average, this group of 40 came in with an EOG score of a 351 (Level II), and finished with an average score of 358 (Level III), showing as a group, a 7 point increase! This might be one of the statistics that impressed me the most. The average student in my regular classes grew almost 2 years worth! This was a point of pride for the students and myself at the end of the year!
4. Big Goal: With the Big Goal being a 10 point growth, I was really unsure how many students would actually get there, or even get close. To my surprise, 16 students had growth of 10+ points, and another 9 students grew 8-9 points. I rewarded all 25 students because they either hit the Big Goal or came really close, and ALL showed growth of 2+ years in one year. A point of pride for my regular classes was that out of those 25 kids…a whopping 19 of them came from my 1st or 3rd blocks (the regular 7th grade classes) and only 6 were from the 4th block Honors class. Again, this is due to the lack of major growth shown by Honors kids being typical.
5. Honors Class: My Honors students not only learned the entire 7th grade curriculum, but about 90% of the 8th grade curriculum in ONE YEAR! This was not there fault, and was due to a slip-up on the part of the 6th grade teachers the year before. Regardless, they hung with me as I taught my face off to get them ready for Algebra. I was worried at the end of the year that it was going to be too much, knowing they were still required to take, and do well on, the 7th grade EOG. Coming in, 18/29 had Level IV’s, but the rumor is that they HAVE to get a Level IV to go to Algebra. My group ended with 23 Level IV’s, with only 6 missing the mark. And 3 of the 6 were only a point away and would most likely still be considered for Algebra. Overall, I was so very proud of the Honors class!
6. Individual Recognition: Finally, I would like to point out a few of the best individual stories from the testing data.
   • First of all, SH is the student that I was convinced would make the highest growth out of all my students. I have been saying it all year. She came in as a Level I and has been one of my most hardworking, most respectful, just all around good students. She not only ended with the largest amount of growth for me, but she had the largest amount of growth of anyone in the 7th grade (and probably the whole school). SH grew 17 points!!! That’s over 4 years worth in one year. She not only went from a Level I to a Level II, but ended as a Level III and passing score! Following closely behind here are 3 students who had 15 points of growth, just under 4 years!
   • In addition to being able to claim the student with the most growth, I also can claim the student who made the highest score in the grade level (with a 380, just 2 points shy of a perfect score). Go RC!
   • I had four students from my regular 7th grade classes score a Level IV, putting them “above grade level” and now potentially on track to go into Honors. One of those students didn’t just get a IV but it was actually a higher IV than a lot of my Honors kids! Go AW, MS, AB, and JT!
   • DG is the repeater that I have spoken of in the past, who I have now had the pleasure/trials of teaching for two years. I will be writing a separate blog entry about him soon, so stay tuned. But in reference to his scores, he has consistently received either Level I’s or low Level II’s all through school. This year, his second time around, he grew 10 points, met our Big Goal, caught up 2.5 years, and ended just 2 points shy of a Level III!
   • Another repeater that I had, IW, grew 8 points himself and got his first ever Level III in math!
   • One girl is a particularly funny story and I think highlights how important it is that we don’t give up on students, and, at least with certain students, just being given an opportunity to do something is all they need. This student, MM, was given to me during the first week of the year because of “behavior issues” she was having with the longterm sub in the Vacant Math Class. What my Assistant Principal failed to notice however, is that she was moving her to me during 4th block, when I teach Honors. MM was not coming from an Honors class. However, I figured once things settled in I could correct the problem. But then MM started outperforming some of my Honors students and demonstrating that she was definitely capable of staying with the Honors pace. I pulled her aside for a chat one day where she explained to me that she has been in Honors in 6th grade, but they didn’t keep her in Honors for 7th because of her grades, EOG score (which was a Level III), and her behavior. I decided, as long as nobody saw a issue with it, I was just gonna let is slide under the rug and be forgotten about because I saw something in this girl that I believed in. Fast forward to the end of the year and MM not only got herself a Level IV, but grew 13 points, growing over 3 years, and scoring higher than HALF of the other Honors students! Go MM! That one “snafu” will end up landing MM in Algebra next year, and if she can keep her head on straight and stop getting suspended so much (she’s a fireball getting in fights and cussing out teachers) she is much closer to going to college then the majority of her peers.

Okay. I think that is enough for now. I promise the next post will have pictures and be a MUCH easier read!

EOG Time!

So the EOG’s have already been given and retaken. I am waiting to get the retake scores before I share the results with you readers, but I can say that my kids did GOOD!

But I wanted to share some pictures from the week leading up to, and the week of EOGs. My school actually had some EOG spirit this year and decorated our doors, decorated t-shirts, and the hallways to get the kids excited about them. We wanted them to be pumped up to score a 3 or 4 (passing scores) and they actually got into it.

I would like to introduce my alter-ego. He is a smooth-talking, lyrical-genius, rapper. My kids have called me C-beza all year, so it was not a far stretch to come up with my alter-ego’s name….DJ C-Beza!

My door that is a remix of Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now". If you don't know it, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gyLR4NfMiI

The front of my shirt. Translation: Mr. Cabeza's students are gonna go H.A.M. (hard as a mo' fo') on the EOG's. My kids were impressed with this!

The back of my shirt. I only had one of each consonant with my iron-on letters so I had to get creative! This was for the week's theme "Score a Four". My kids were proud of my ebonics ability!

MY FAVORITE! Remixed from Waka Flocka Flame's "No Hands" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skhxizRYxps

Remixed from Diddy Dirty Money's "Coming Home" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ImCpNqbJw

Remixed from J. Lo's "On The Floor" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4H_Zoh7G5A

DF

I have done a lot of things this year and worn a lot of hats, but by far, the hardest job that I have had all year…being a mentor and loving a kid like he was my own family.

I didn’t realize that I was signing up for this job, it sort of just happened. I have mentioned this student before, and I have referred to him as DF. When I look back on my 2nd year of teaching, I’m sure I’ll remember a lot, but I think the thing that I will remember the most will be my relationship with this kid.

DF transferred into my room after about the first 3-4 weeks of school because he needed to be in an Inclusion class due to special needs. He hit it off from the get go and had a pretty good relationship. Then I became his Facebook friend on my teacher page. I could tell there was a lot going on with this kid and that he needed a great deal of attention from adults. Now that I basically know the entire life story of the kid, I know that it’s because of the transitory situation going on at home. Throughout the fall months, we got pretty close and I even gave him my phone number. This started a pretty substantial texting relationship that I can only describe as a combination between mentor/mentee, big brother/lil brother, and almost on a level of friends from different worlds. My other teacher friends even started giving me a hard time because DF and I would text 40-50 times a day back and forth and they started to get “concerned”. I understood their concern, but I also knew that this was a necessary relationship for this kid.

By late fall DF would stop by my door every morning and hang out during Homeroom time (7:30-8:00) before going to 1st block, I would find him in the hall on the way to 2nd block, he then came to me for HAC, lunch, and 3rd block (11:00-1:30) and then I would always find him and wrestle him or chat with him after school until his dad picked him up (a routine that we STILL follow even into June!) Around November, DF told me that he would be moving to Charleston to live with his mom (part of the situation at home) sometime in January, a claim that his mom confirmed. I was extremely sad because I had really started getting to know this kid and would be sad to see him go. I decided to make the most of the relationship while he was in town.

January came and went, and he didn’t move. I was extremely relieved, knowing that it gave me at least a few more months. The months passed and I kept getting to know this kid on a much deeper level than any other student that I teach. I love (most of) my kids, but DF was different, I started really seeing DF as like a little brother. He would come in to Saturday school and I would just do one-on-one tutoring with him (as I am not a paid Sat. school teacher). I gave him an old Abercrombie sweatshirt because he loves that store like I used to when I was in middle school (haha). Then, his dad went out of town around Mother’s Day and I took him to school that whole week, getting him breakfast and frappucinos every morning and even dinner one night. One weekend he called me up and asked me to take him and one of his oldest friends out to dinner, so the 3 of us went to O’Charleys (no telling what the waitress thought about a 25 year old man hanging out with two 13-year-olds on a Saturday night…HA!) More recently, DF spend the day with Kelly Pinyan and I as we took him to lunch and then to the mall to spend his birthday money. We spent 3-4 hours with the kid and Kelly got to see exactly why you can’t help but love the kid.

As I just mentioned, his birthday passed recently. I ended going a little overboard with the presents. Of course I had to give him an A&F gift card. He also had talked about this new white rapper that Eminem had helped sign named Yelawolf, so I ordered that CD online. But the 3rd gift is the one that I wanted to share about. Earlier in the week of his birthday, DF tried to asked me what I got him. I wouldn’t tell him, so he started guessing. The first thing he said was “a math book or something”. So because he was thinking along the lines of a book, I jokingly said, “no, I got you a Bible”. I was just trying to joke because I assumed he would think that was a terrible gift, but to my surprise, his response was, “really?” I told him I was kidding and he said “you shouldn’t kid about that”. This led to a conversation where I basically told him that everyone should have a Bible, and he told me that he has never had one. Of course I left school THAT DAY and went to Barnes and Nobles to get him a teen study Bible. I get so wrapped up in what I have come to Charlotte to do for these kids academically, that I sometimes (shamefully) forget that I could also be a positive Christian influence on their lives (albeit that I still have to work within the parameters of separation of church and state and within a government building…however it IS North Carolina.)

Recently, there have been a few “incidents” that have completely rocked my world and my relationship with DF because they involved some really bad decisions on his part. It has really made me question if I could ever be a parent, because as much as I know that I’m dealing with teenage kids going through some of the worst years of their life, the amount that I care for DF makes it difficult to even see him make one bad decision, much less several pretty severe ones.

However, before these “incidents” and afterwards, DF has made several comments that make me realize how I have impacted his life. We were talking one night through text message and he comes out with this statement, “You came to me when I was at my lowest”. Now, one thing you have to know is that DF and I are constantly texting song lyrics to each other, usually from rap songs or hard rock songs. One of the most quoted is a song by Eminem and Dr. Dre called “I Need A Doctor” and is about their friendship in the music industry and how Dr. Dre is the reason that Eminem even has a career and now Eminem is the one that is trying to save Dr. Dre. So the aforementioned lyric is from that song. DF went on to tell him that he wasn’t just quoted a lyric, that he truly felt that way. When we met, he had just moved between his parents houses for necessary reasons and it has been really hard on him this school year. I was humbled by the fact that a 13-year-old kid can recognize a low point in his life and the thing that helped him through…and that I was able to be there for him in that way. Recently, during these “incidents” that have really upset me as someone who cares so much about him, he texted me one night and said “You must not know how much you mean to me, you’re my mentor”. That was the first time he officially called me his mentor and I could tell that he realized how bad he had disappointed me and how upset I was and he needed me to understand that he was sorry and still needed me in his life. These have been some of the most touching moments in my teaching career thus far.

Throughout this entire year, the one thing I have been the most nervous about is how DF’s parents feel about our relationship and how close DF is with one of his teachers. The recent “incidents” have been enough for me to understand that they are not only supportive of my relationship with their son, but that they actually appreciate it as well. In fact, DF’s dad gave me a random phone call the other day, just to thank me for how much I have done for DF and how much I have looked out for him this year. In addition, I have been talking to his mom on the phone a good bit, because she is still living in Charleston and needed to find out what has been going on with DF lately. After several phone conversations and a few text messages, DF’s mom texted me the other day saying “thank you for being a part of my village”. We have both been saying how it takes a “village” to raise a child, and she was recognizing me as being a part of that village for DF. Seriously, it’s almost too much for me to comprehend, but I know that I love this part of my job right now.

So even though I have been a stressed out emotional wreck for the last two weeks because of the things happening with DF, I also know that I love that kid like a brother/son/mentee/student/friend all wrapped into one and that we will stay in contact no matter what. With only 5 days of school left, I have come to terms with the end of us being in a classroom together for up to 3 or 4 hours together everyday. But the good news is that his mom is planning on moving back to Charlotte at the end of the summer! So even though he will probably go to a different middle school next year, he will still be in the same city as me and I can still keep tabs on him, behaviorally and academically!

Here are a few pictures of DF and I. Again, I have posted about him before so he should look familiar by now.

Me and DF at the Sports Banquet at school. He is wearing one of my old Abercrombie shirts here!

My "work family" - Ms. Cusaac is my "work wife" and DF is my "work son".

The top of this had DF's name. He wrote this in highlighter on my car one afternoon...the kid thinks he "owns" my car and me! haha