My best teaching day wasn't a day at all...

My best teaching day wasn’t actually a teaching day, but it was certainly my best day as a teacher. After 24 years of teaching elementary school, in the same school where I did my student teaching, I reconnected with a former student on Facebook. Jessica had been in my first class ever, a sweet fifth grader who had Grand Canyon dimples. I was thrilled to get her friend request and added her immediate. We arranged a lunch date and got together a couple of weeks later.

It turns out that Jessica had graduated from our local high school and completed a masters in psychology. She is currently a living donor counselor at a world-class hospital, working with patients who are donating kidneys to family as well as strangers. Oh, boy, was I so proud to hear this. I know that she had so many more teachers besides me, but I still feel like this was my doing.

Jess was one of those students I kept in touch with through middle school and high school. I attended her clarinet recitals and even her quincañera. Her parents celebrated their nuptial mass (having been civilly married in Mexico) and I was lucky enough to celebrate with them.

When we got together for lunch at La Scala in Beverly Hills, we had the best long talk. She asked me how I had seen her when she was a student. I told her that she was one of my smarties, and that I knew she was destined for great things. She told me that it was hard to believe, because she’d had such a poor self-image when she was a child because she was a recent immigrant from Mexico, and didn’t start school in the US until she was in the third grade. When she was in my class, she told me that she felt so stupid because she wasn’t fluent in English. I told her that she was very good at hiding her insecurities, that I thought she was just shy.

Those recitals I attended 22-23 years ago made such an impression on a sensitive little girl. What she didn’t know was that I was feeling so burned out, and had lost so much of the passion I once had for teaching as a profession. Hearing her words brought back so many positive memories, and rekindled the fire.

So my best teaching day wasn't just a day at all. It was my career.

Measurement

Mark Ybarra

SPED - RSP

FCSS - VHEA Community School

I was thinking of a lesson I could co-teach with the math teacher. I decided to present a real-world environment that included using tape measures, a yardstick, and a rolling measurement wheel.

I started by taking a Google Maps screen capture of our school, and shared it with the students. To access prior knowledge, I asked students to name as many shapes as they could find - i.e. rectangles, squares, circles, triangles, etc.

I told students we were going to measure the school, starting with the basketball court, and ending with the block our school is located on. The students were told they would annotate the dimensions on the Google Maps picture. The students would work in teams.

So the students would know how to measure using a tape measure, I included a YouTube video, on how to use a measuring tape.
With the dimensions recorded of a basketball court, we continued and found perimeter, area, circle area, radius, etc.

Don't Stop Believin'

Holly Dupont

Elementary Special Educator

Last year I had a memorable student with a unique obsession-the band, Journey. My student is of Filipino heritage, as is the current lead singer for the band, whose name Arnel Pineda. Both were born in the Philippines, and have emigrated to the United States. My kiddo could air drum, air guitar and sing along with any of the Journey videos he was able to watch online for his breaks. Not only did he choose Journey videos as his reward, his token chart had the band’s images embedded into it. Knowing that my student loved Journey so much, I was able to get him two tickets to their concert last summer. Also, thanks to technology, I was able to reach out to Arnel Pineda via Instagram, and he set up a meet and greet for the student and his family. Though this wasn’t a particular day of teaching per se, it was one of the most rewarding experiences to be a part of. “Don’t Stop Believing!”

Andy Gibson

High School Teacher

My best day of teaching is always the culmination of my class, which is the day of the AP US History test. My APUSH Jedi Knights, as I call them since I am a proud Star Wars Nerd,  have a procession to our multipurpose room to take the test, with music playing from the school band, horns, flags, lightsabers you name it. Over the last 6 years I have had an average of 110 students take the test.  Every year my brother designs Star Wars & US History themed t-shirts which are pictured on the right.  I want my students to walk into the test with confidence and swagger, and they always do.  After the test is over, everyone meets back in my classroom for lunch and they are always excited about how they performed...well most of them :)  Every year I have done this, my students always have said that this is their favorite day.  Mine too :)

Susie Charles

My best teaching day ever was last winter, during one of the worst winter storms of the year. Before our school was closed early at noon, we decided to investigate how to build structurally sound snow forts. Students researched, designed and then headed outside to build. Students also built obstacle courses for the younger kids. BEST DAY EVER.

Growth Mindset and Relationships

I think it is pretty difficult to choose one day that was the best ever so I am just going to focus on a  specific moment that happened this year. One of the behaviour students in my class this year, who has a reputation for refusing to complete work and a defiant attitude, showed a great growth mindset during our reading response writing. I had told the students that they should be able to write a full page in their response books. This student came to me with about half a page written. I told him if he thought he had included enough to meet the rubric he could be finished as he had worked hard. He told me that I had told them they should be able to write a full page so that was what he wanted to do. This meant a lot to me as it made me feel like I was developing a good rapport with this student as well as that he was working on changing his mindset, which set the tone for the rest of the school year. We’ve had our moments still, but I believe that we will have a successful year together.

Andrea Kerr

My best teaching day was a day of making art outside - "plein air".  I visited two outdoor classrooms - one at the Rose Garden and one under the tree outside their school.  It was a gorgeous day and so wonderful to see both students and teachers deeply engaged in the creative process with professional artists.