The "Ah Ha" Moment...

Okay, so this is the moment I wait for everyday. Somedays I don't even get an "Ah" but today I got the whole "Ah Ha" and it makes me realize that I can do it. I can teach. Really, an "Ah Ha" moment from my students is directly linked to my own "Ah Ha" moment.

Beginning school this year has been quite an adventure. In Deline, I taught the same grade for three years; therefore, last year was easier for me because I knew what I was doing. So far this school year feels like my first year of teaching again. I'm at work before 8am (usually 7:45) and I leave around 5pm... but not only that, last Sunday I spent 9 hours in the school...actually working - not procrastinating. Breathe. I remind myself to breathe. Some days I panic that I'm not teaching them what they need to learn...

But then there's mornings like this morning. Started off with Creative Writing where they are actually getting less scared to write... a major achievement. Then, the big "Ah Ha" moment came in English A30 (English 12) where we began our unit on poetry. We talked about poetry and out of 14 students, 12 said they hate "doing" poetry in class. That was then.

Thank you Mr. Frost. I couldn't decide what poem to start off with but we had been discussing the ideas surrounding choice, so I figured that this poem would serve as a good transition as far as theme was concerned. To make a long story (hey, it could have been longer) shorter, let me conclude with: they got it. They got that Robert Frost may not have been referring to a physical road but rather, a path in life that one must choose. Moments like these make me happy to be paying off my rather large debt incurred while attending the Education program.

But, one last digression... I had been explaining to the grade 12's that the more familiar you become with literature the more frequently you notice it referenced in popular culture. While we were "dissecting" The Road Not Taken one of the students said "Hey! Its just like when Tom Hanks was standing at the crossroads in Cast Away!"

Ahhhh.... Haaaa....