Mrs. Potter's Room

My students and me in front of my classroom door during homecoming week I have seen a lot lately about teachers greeting students at the door of the classroom each morning by name. Some have special handshakes for each child. Some do dances. Some designate a student to do the morning greeting. I have also read in many teaching books about the importance of greeting students every day by name. Some of these books give elaborate suggestions and detailed rationale.  Of course I agree completely with the notion that teachers should greet students, but it just seems like common sense to me. It puzzles me that we need textbooks to tell us to be courteous to people.   Maybe we need to be reminded because sometimes it is easy for teachers, myself included, to get so overwhelmed and exhausted by the job that we lose sight that these are individuals filling our classroom who need attention, each one of them. This can be tough when you see over a hundred student...

             I took down our Christmas tree a couple of days ago. Actually, I took down our four trees. The tree in the family room is the pretty one. All the ornaments are color-coordinated and the children do not help me decorate it. (My sons do not help me decorate at all anymore, but if they did, they would not be allowed to decorate the family room tree.) I have a small tree in the nook above the fireplace with nativity-themed ornaments. There is another small tree that sets on the counter in the kitchen. It displays food-themed ornaments. Finally, we have a tree in our sitting room, right off the kitchen. This tree, though it’s old and really needs to be thrown away, is my favorite. On it I hang all the special ornaments. There are the teddy bear ornaments my mom-in-law made for our first Christmas. There are several ornaments my boys have made for me—I love the ones with their cute little faces framed on ...

A few weeks ago Daniel was sitting on the loveseat in the back of my classroom with Payton. My Philosophy class was taking a quiz when from the back Daniel shouted, “A bed bug! Don’t throw it! We gotta catch it” I looked back to see Daniel scrambling on the floor to recover the dreaded insect. Then students were up, papers flying, girls screaming, boys climbing on top of furniture. And I instinctively called Ricky, our head custodian. “Yep, looks like a bed bug to me,” he said as he examined the now-dead imposter. I knew what this meant, how difficult it was to recover from an infestation, how stubborn and sneaky bed bugs were.  After Ricky left to talk to the principal to see how to proceed, I hastily threw the dead bug away. Unfortunately, a few minutes later, Ricky was back at the door. They needed the specimen. So Cassie, one of my sweet students, and I got on all fours and rummaged through the trash to find the bug. Thankfully it was still early in the day, so ...

My last writing journal assignment for my students is always “Dear Mrs. Potter”. Usually students will write me a really nice thank you note that will make me feel super wonderful. I thought I’d do the same for them this year. Here it is. Dear Student, I must admit, at the beginning of the year I was a little concerned about the academic challenges we would have to face together. You started the year a little unsure of yourself and sometimes wanted to give up before you really tried. I was a little worried that you might not be up to the challenge. But you proved me wrong. You stuck with me and worked hard.  Thank you for being fun to teach. You made me laugh so much, and I am grateful for it. I loved when you got excited about the literature we were reading or the issue we were discussing. Thank you for not grumbling too much about my weird teaching methods and not rolling your eyes when I gushed over my husband. You were so patient with my absent-minde...