First Night of Summer

What I do for a living is amazing. I love the joys, challenges and passion that comes with teaching. It is something I can not imagine finding as fully in another career.
That being said though, there is something absolutely amazing about the first night of summer vacation. Even though summer school starts next week, I still relish in the freedom that comes right after the final bell of the school year rings.
As the summer stretches before me, long and welcoming, I imagine all that I will do. Lay by the pool and read (trying to make a dent in my 20 deep pile of books to be read). Take walks around the lake near my house. Grill, garden, travel, recharge...
I know very few people in the world aside from teachers are lucky enough to experience the glories of summer vacation. I am so thankful I am able to. I truly believe the time off - the time away from it all, makes me better at what I do.
Every June I am completely spent and eagerly await the start of break, but every August, I am ready to go back and do it all over again.

Loss

I got the sad news yesterday that one of my former students fell from a tree this weekend and died. I was so saddened by his loss. He was a wonderful boy. I had him in my 5th grade class 5 years ago. He had immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador a year earlier and was still very quiet and shy when I had him. He was a very hard worker and so respectful and pleasant to be around. He moved to a new house part way though his 5th grade year and had to change schools. The entire class was sad to see him go. I saw him a few times after that - and various ESL functions. He always went out of his way to come great me.
The thing that keeps running though my mind is that he really was a good boy. The kids I work with have so many negative influences - gangs, drugs, teen pregnancy... those things never even came close to Jose. He played soccer and took boxing lessons. And on the night of his accident, he was at home, playing ball with the neighbors. He was one of our success stories. It is so hard to come to terms with the fact that his story has ended.

Small Steps

One of my favorite things in the world is to watch a student take the first small steps towards reading. Often this happens in the fall, at the beginning of the year. But we recently got 2 new arrivals from Mexico. Despite the fact that we only have 2 weeks of school left, it is wonderful to have a few new faces and great to get them started on the road to learning English before the summer begins.
At the beginning of each class, we go clear though the alphabet and say each letter and the sound it makes ("Big A, little A /a/, /a/, /a/"). Then we begin working on our lowest level books. These books are very much a pattern and contain a few sight words, and some harder vocabulary words that can be guessed based on the picture. I pre-teach the vocabulary words, then sit back and watch as quiet utterances slowly turn into reading. I absolutely love it. It is so neat to see them make the connections between unknown words and the pictures. It is wonderful to hear "/p/..../p/... turn into "pencil". It is inspiring to see the pride on their faces as they see what they have accomplished.