Hi Ben,
Hope Winter is treating you well out there in CO.
Sorry for the length, but I wanted to share this with you:
Today in a French 3 class I was sitting on top of my desk, typing at a computer stand, while my kids raised their hands to feed me the lines of the story we created yesterday. A few minutes into this, a woman walked in with what appeared to be a student ambassador, and she observed my class for about 10 minutes. I discovered after this woman left that she is the mom of the main character of the story I was typing up on the projector screen. How perfect is that, that a mom could come into her son’s class and hear us talking about him in French, saying his name dozens of times and projecting it at the front of the class, before she left smiling?!
Also, three very shy girls finally spoke up today to provide details as we flushed out an ending to our story.
I loathed going to work last week because, under pressure from my department head, I tried teaching the thematic unit of the curriculum for the week (I’ll try anything once). But today, as I stayed in the moment in that class, enjoying the interaction with and amongst my students, I remembered how fun it can be to hang out with teenagers for an hour.
Your coaching two years ago by phone has gone a long way. I remember feeling a heavy weight lifted off my shoulders when I found your website and after that conversation, as I saw a way to become a more whole person through this way of teaching.
Thanks for all you’ve done and continue to do to help us all in the group do our jobs in a way that honors ourselves and our students and allows us to grow together – and for continuing to keep up the PLC so we have a place to do it.
Greg